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Pulse survivor still working to return life to normal

ORLANDO, Fla. — For many of the Pulse survivors, the last year has been filled with painful rehab.

Channel 9’s Len Kiese spoke with a survivor who showed that time hasn’t healed all wounds, with some still facing struggles on the road to recovery.

For Fred Johnson, that road includes mourning the loss of two friends to the shooting he managed to escape—and he’s left with the wounds to prove it.

When he thinks about Pulse, he said, it seems like only yesterday.

“It was a chaotic situation,” Johnson said. “Nobody knew if there was one shooter, two shooters.”

Though a year has gone by, the sound of back-to-back gunshots remains fresh to him.

"After it kept on going, plow plow, kept on going like fireworks going off, that's when I knew something's not right here,” he said.

Johnson said in the midst of panic, his military training—which he calls survival mode—kicked in.

"Trying to remember OK listen, he's going to have to reload soon.  So whenever that person reloads, that's my time to make a run for an exit,” he said.

He remembers making break for the exit when he felt bullets pierce his skin twice.

"My arm was the first hit and then I felt my whole arm just collapse.  And then I felt some pressure on my right hand side and that's where the other bullet hit.  And then I took about two or three additional steps and then I fell down just because I couldn't support what was going on," Johnson said.

A year later, he has been in and out of doctor’s offices too many times to count, most recently to prepare for his third surgery.

"Some of the scar tissue from the incident has grown and so it's limited some of the function of my nerves and muscles” he said.

Doctors determined that the bullet that tore through his arm cracked the bone and severed tendons and two major nerves.

"He came in with a ballistic injury, essentially a large hole, about a foot by 6 inches in his forearm,” said Dr. Brett Lewellyn, orthopedic surgeon.

Out of the Pulse patients he’s treated, Lewellyn said Fred’s injuries are some of the most serious.

“Whenever you have that level of injury, you never really get back to 100 percent,” Lewellyn said.

But that hasn’t stopped Johnson from trying to get back to that level, with therapy at least twice a week to get more use of his hand.

He said his injuries have made daily rituals a struggle.

"I want to find what was really my purpose for not dying.  I really feel like God was telling me, I have a purpose for you,” he said.

Watch Orlando Health doctors reflect on Pulse:

Len Kiese

Len Kiese

I am extremely excited to call Central Florida home.