July 2018 Issue #19 July 2018 Issue #19 4Guys | Page 92

The day that changed everything: 12 June, 2016. When was the moment you realised
something had changed?
Barbara: My first call came from another manager who’s name was Neema Bahrami who called
me at 2:06 am. “There’s someone shooting. There’s a shooter in the building.” That’s what Nee-
ma kept screaming at me on the phone. I was like, “What are you talking about?” It took a little
while for it to settle in, and it took a while for it to hit the television as I was relying on CNN to start
broadcasting about it. It was completely surreal to turn the TV on and see Pulse nightclub and
see my sign and my building, and know that the whole world was watching. You don’t think this
type of thing would happen in a nightclub and there was nothing about it that made sense. Noth-
ing that your brain could wrap around about what was happening or even the magnitude of it.
Brian: I remember looking at my employee and we both were baffled and confused. At first, we
weren’t sure if a speaker had blown inside. Unfortunately more shots were fired very rapidly and
continued to be fired and that’s when we realised it was much more than a speaker. We saw peo-
ple running out of the club from one of the exit doors on the patio, people hiding anywhere and
everywhere they possibly could to try and get away. It was a very scary situation and I think a lot
of those people tried to react as best that they could in that sort of a situation.
What was your initial human instinct when you realised what was happening? Was it to try
to run away, or was it to support those inside?
Brian: It was definitely more about trying to support people inside. I remember we’d ducked
behind the outdoor patio bar temporarily for what seemed like forever, but was probably only a
few seconds. I remember us yelling for everyone to get out. At that point, even though it probably
wasn’t the smartest move at the time, I tried to go back inside and that’s when one of our off-du-
ty police officers I’ve known grabbed me by the shirt and said, “You’re not going back inside that
building. Get outside, get as far away as you can.”
Once I got far enough