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| Rodney Sumpter |
It was just after 2 a.m. on June 12, and Rodney Sumter was face-down on the floor behind the bar at a packed nightclub, talking to God over the din of assault rifle rounds and thumping dance music.
A few moments earlier, Sumter, a bartender at Pulse, a gay bar near downtown, had been shot three times by an unknown assailant as he started closing up for the night. As the situation unfolded and chaos descended on the club, Sumter had no idea he was a victim in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, but in that instant, context was irrelevant. He knew his situation was dire.
The first bullet from the gunman'€™s Sig Sauer MCX rifle had shattered Sumter'€™s right arm. The second ripped through his left arm, just above the elbow, exposing muscle and bone. The third, a direct hit, pierced his upper back, just below a tattoo of two angels, one for each of his kids.
That final shot left a bloody and terror-stricken Sumter gasping for air, and as he reconciled the fact that what remaining breaths he had might be his last, he turned to the heavens to say goodbye.
"€œThe Bible says to train up your child in the manner in which you want them to go,"€ Sumter'€™s mother, Lenita Sumter, said. "€œSo I tried to train him — '€˜Look, if you'€™re at your last moment, your last breath, don'€™t spend it swearing and saying all kinds of crazy things.'€™ You want to definitely connect with God. You want to let God know that you love him and you care no matter what.
"€œSo I was so humbled and so excited to know that in what he thought were his last moments, he began to pray."
