Published on Jun 14, 2016 
 
 Patience Carter, 20, described how moments after she and her friends planned to leave gay nightclub Pulse on Sunday night, the gunshots began. 
 
 
 
 Carter said one of her friends was killed and another severely injured after suspected gunman Omar Mateen opened fire inside the club early Sunday. The massacre left 49 dead and dozens injured. 
 
 
 
 Prior to explaining the details of Sunday night's massacre in Orlando, Carter read a poem, saying “the guilt of being alive is heavy.” 
 
 
 
 “As the world mourns the victims killed and viciously slain, I feel guilty about screaming about my legs and pain because I can feel nothing,” Carter said at a news conference at Florida Hospital Orlando on Tuesday. “Like the other 49 who weren’t so lucky to feel this pain of mine.” ||||| ORLANDO - Patience Carter went to Orlando with a friend's family on vacation, and ended up one of the few surviving witnesses to the last moments of the worst mass shooting in American history. 
 
 Carter, 20 years old, had fled into the bathroom of Pulse nightclub during the Orlando massacre, and as the situation was winding down, she said the gunman told police negotiators on the phone that he pledged his allegiance to ISIS, and that he wouldn't stop his assault until America stopped bombing his country. 
 
 The New York-born shooter, Omar Mateen, had two parents from Afghanistan. 
 
 Carter said after he hung up the phone, he "started speaking in Arabic," but she said she wasn't sure to whom, and then he had a question for the others cowering in earshot. 
 
 "Are there any black people in here?" Mateen asked, according to Carter. 
 
 She said she was too afraid to reply, but another black person hiding in the bathroom did. 
 
 "I don't have a problem with black people," Mateen reportedly said in reply. "This is about my country. You guys suffered enough." 
 
 Pulse was attacked on Latin night, and many of those killed were from Puerto Rico, although there are other ethnicities among the dead. 
 
 As more victims of the shooter come forward, deeply harrowing descriptions of survival and loss are coming to the public's attention. 
 
 Carter described a bloody scene in the bathroom of Pulse nightclub, where survivors had sought refuge from the rampage that started out in the club, only to find themselves locked in with Mateen just before police breached a wall to get at him. 
 
 As she was lying on the floor looking over the "piles" of bloody bodies in the bathroom, she said she "made peace with God and within myself." 
 
 Carter said she asked God to take her away so the pain would stop. 
 
 After a while, police began shouting warnings to survivors to move away from the bathroom walls so they could blow them open, Carter said the gunman carefully executed a final three people, including a stranger who was shielding her. 
 
 "If it wasn't for that person shielding me it would've been me shot and I wouldn't be sitting here today," Carter said. 
 
 After the breach, she said the firefight was terrifying, and the explosives broke the pipes in the walls, sending water flooding into the bathroom. Carter said she was afraid of drowning "in bloody water," as police attempted to clear the room of any remaining danger. 
 
 While some have questioned the police decisions that night, Carter said she did not based on what she heard him saying, adding: "He wasn't going to stop killing people till he was killed." 
 
 When the dust cleared, Carter said she went to check on the two friends she had gone dancing with. One of them, Tiara Parker, was wounded but alive. Another, Akyra Murray, did not make it. 
 
 Carter said she was struggling with being a survivor. ||||| Patience Carter said she and her friends ended up at the Pulse nightclub because of a Google map suggestion to visit the popular gay destination. 
 
 Traveling from Philadelphia, Carter, 20, and her friends arrived at the nightclub shortly after midnight. This was Carter’s first time in Florida, first time in Orlando and first time at Pulse. 
 
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 “It was the most beautiful bonding experience any three girls can have on their first night out on vacation,” Carter said at a news conference at Florida Hospital Orlando on Tuesday. 
 
 Carter described how moments after she and her friends planned to leave the club Sunday, the gunshots began. Carter said one of her friends was killed and another severely injured when suspected gunman Omar Mateen opened fire inside the club early Sunday. The massacre left 49 dead and dozens injured. 
 
 Carter, who suffered a gunshot wound to her leg, said the gunman specifically told his victims that his motivation for the shooting was because he wanted America to stop bombing his country. Mateen was born in New York and his parents were born in Afghanistan. 
 
 Patience Carter read a poem during a news conference at Florida Hospital Orlando on Tuesday, saying “the guilt of being alive is heavy.” Video by PBS NewsHour 
 
 Although President Barack Obama didn’t identify the shooter on Monday, he said investigators were looking into how an “angry, disturbed, unstable young man” became radicalized. 
 
 FBI officials had said Mateen called 911 dispatchers and pledged loyalty to the Islamic State group before the attack. Carter said she witnessed Mateen pledging allegiance to ISIS that night. 
 
 Prior to her recounting the details of early Sunday morning, Carter read a statement, saying “the guilt of being alive is heavy.” 
 
 “As the world mourns the victims killed and viciously slain, I feel guilty about screaming about my legs and pain because I can feel nothing,” Carter tearfully said. “Like the other 49 who weren’t so lucky to feel this pain of mine.” 
 
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– In the waning minutes of the massacre at Pulse in Orlando, Omar Mateen stopped shooting to ask, "Are there any black people in here?" 20-year-old survivor Patience Carter tells CBS News. He reportedly added: "I don't have a problem with black people…You guys suffered enough." On Tuesday, Carter shared her memories of the shooting that claimed the lives of 49 people, including her 18-year-old friend, Akyra Murray. Carter, Murray, and Murray's cousin Tiara Parker were visiting Orlando from Philadelphia and went to Pulse on the recommendation of Google Maps, PBS reports. Parker had just called for an Uber to take them back to their hotel when the shooting started. “We went from having the time of our lives to the worst night of our lives in a matter of minutes,” Carter tells BuzzFeed. Carter and Murray made it out of the club but went back for Parker and ended up hiding in a bathroom. Then Mateen came in and started killing people. Carter was shot in both legs. Murray was killed. “Bodies were piled on top of each other on the toilet seat,” she tells BuzzFeed. “There were handprints on everything, and blood.” Mateen demanded the victims' cellphones. Carter says Mateen killed three more people, including a person protecting her, just as police came through the wall. "If it wasn't for that person shielding me it would've been me shot," Carter tells CBS. Carter read a poem about her struggle with being a survivor during a press conference. “The guilt of being alive is heavy," PBS quotes Carter as saying in the poem.