Orlando survivor Patience Carter: "The guilt of being alive is heavy"
ORLANDO, FL (WTXF) - FOX 29 Philadelphia intern Patience Carter was wounded in the Orlando nightclub shooting that left 49 innocent people dead. She shared a poem of her experience Tuesday.
In a press conference, Carter recounted her experience of hiding in a bathroom with her friends, including Akyra Murray, who was killed in the shooting. Patience was shot in the leg.
READ MORE: FOX 29 intern recovering from Orlando nightclub attack | West Catholic Prep graduate, Akyra Murray, killed in Orlando
However, before she shared her story, she read a poem she had written in the middle of the night the night before her press conference.
"The guilt of feeling grateful to be alive is heavy. Wanting to smile about surviving but not sure if the people around you are ready, as the world mourns the victims killed and viciously slain,
I feel guilty about screaming about my legs and pain...
Because I could feel nothing
Like the other 49, who weren't so lucky to feel this pain of mine. I never thought in a million years that this could happen.
I never thought in a million years that my eyes could witness something so tragic.
Looking at the souls leaving the bodies of individuals.
Looking at the killer's machine gun throughout my right peripheral.
Looking at the blood and debris covered on everyone's faces.
Looking at the gunman's feet under the stall as he paces.
The guilt of feeling lucky to be alive is heavy, it's like the weight of the oceans walls crushing uncontrolled by levies. It's like being drug through the grass with a shattered leg and thrown in the back of a Chevy.
Being rushed to the hospital and told you're going to make it, when you laid beside individuals whose lives were brutally taken.
The guilt of being alive is heavy."
The FOX 29 family gotten to know Patience because as an Emma Bowen Foundation scholar, she will intern at the station during all four years of school, and this is her second summer. She is currently a student at NYU.
FOX 29 is look forward to a speedy recovery and Patience's return to Philadelphia.
For the latest on the shooting, click here.