Agonizing wait for families in Orlando
ORLANDO (FOX 13) - Some received good news. Ruby Caldra rushed to Orlando Regional Hospital to bring her brother home.
"I am lucky he is alive," she said. "He told me he was hiding. That's all he told me and then later on he was able to call me and said he was out being treated. He is OK."
Her brother was inside Pulse when the shooting started. He called Ruby to tell her he'd been shot in the arm.
"I thought he was kidding at first, but then he was being serious about it. I called my sister so we could come pick him up and see him," she continued.
Others haven't been as fortunate to hear from their loved ones.
"We haven't heard anything from my son at all. There is bodies left at the club that haven't been identified yet. My son is a good human being. This is just so unnecessary," said Christine Leonine.
Leinonen knew her son Christopher and his boyfriend Juan Guerrero were going to Pulse. She hasn't heard from him since Saturday night.
"I have been here since 4 o'clock this morning just trying to find out what's wrong with my son. Where he is," she said.
Christine and her son's friends worked to pass Christopher's picture around. She later found out her son's boyfriend, Juan Guerrero, had died, but she had still not heard anything about her son. Monday, her fears were confirmed when he was one of the victims that were identified.
While the pain grows for those who haven't heard a thing, others are now banding together, like
Tamara Colon and Andrew Aleman, who left the club minutes before the shooting.
"People I know were shot in the arm, hands, legs, thighs. We are just wondering if they are OK and if they need blood," said Colon.
Now they, like many, are thinking of those who survived and working to help.
"We are a family and we might not know each other, but at the end of the day we are human and we are all living for a reason," Aleman added.