ORLANDO, Fla. _ They had been hiding from the shooter in a Pulse nightclub bathroom for about two hours.
"One guy's about to pass away," a man told an emergency dispatcher. " ... We gave him a cup of water to drink out of the sink. We have a number of people. No one saw the shooter. We don't know who the shooter is."
The dispatcher, who said his name was Joe, promised again and again during a 90-minute call with the man that help was on the way, but they needed to make sure everything was safe. So the caller kept waiting.
"I'm serious," the caller said 20 minutes after being promised help, but help still hadn't arrived. "I'm not playing. It's life or death."
The latest batch of 911 calls released Tuesday are some of the most haunting and compelling accounts from witnesses inside the club during the three-hour ordeal.
The June 12 attack left 49 people dead and at least 68 injured. The gunman, Omar Mateen, was killed in a shootout with Orlando police and Orange County deputies after a three-hour standoff inside the club.
The city of Orlando is releasing the calls, little by little, in response to a public records lawsuit from the Orlando Sentinel and about two dozen other media companies.
At 2:18 a.m., dispatchers called a woman who had dialed 911 from inside a Pulse bathroom.
"Please come to Pulse _ P-U-L-S-E _ in Orlando for a shooting," the woman said. "I'm in the bathroom, and he was shooting at us and everybody is bleeding everywhere."
Breathing heavily, the woman told the dispatcher she thought there may have been two shooters when her voice dropped suddenly.
"Oh my God," she said. "He's in here."
Then, the line dropped.
The dispatcher redialed the woman, who whispered into the phone that she did not know which gender bathroom she was in.
"He's here," she said. "Downstairs."
The woman panted into the phone that she was watching the shooter reload his gun.
"Hurry up," she said about 2:23 a.m. "He's loading up! He's loading up!"
The man in the 90-minute call _ the most detailed account _ called from the men's bathroom at 3:49 a.m. He said they needed help. Some were hurt and bleeding. Others were dead.
The man, who was not identified, checked on others in the bathroom with him. He told a person who couldn't talk to blink if he could hear him. He implored Joe the dispatcher to get them help as quickly as possible.
"He's shaking, you need to hurry up," the man said when Joe asked him about someone who was shot in the stomach. "And the other guy, who's shot in the chest, he can't talk so we tell him to blink. ... He's not blinking at the moment. His body, he's going through a reaction."
Joe asked the man whether he knew everyone in the bathroom with him.
"No, but I'm learning as I go," he said. "I don't know names but I do remember faces, I will never forget for as long as I live."
About 50 minutes into the call, the man said his phone's battery was at 2 percent. He borrowed a phone from another person trapped with him and had the 911 call transferred back to Joe.
Another person in the bathroom then took the phone.
"We have been on the phone, or actually several phones _ what is going on?" the second man said. "Can somebody come in here? Did they apprehend anything? Do we need anything to know, anything that we need to do, so we don't keep talking while we're listening to you guys asking us how many people are shot, how many people are here, the same questions over and over? We need action."
Just before 5 a.m., Joe had an update for the caller.
"Our officers are gonna set off a charge. You're gonna hear a small boom," Joe said. " ... Just let everyone know."
The officers were going to try to get into the club. If they got into the bathroom, Joe said, the people inside should follow their orders and do whatever they instructed them to do.
The boom came about four minutes later. No officers entered.
Another minute passed, and Joe told the man that a second charge was coming.
The second charge came at about 5:06 a.m.
"We gonn' make it, we gonn' make it, we gonn' make it," the man said, trying to reassure someone next to him.
Then another boom sounded, louder than the others. They had hit the bathroom wall. Joe told them to stay calm, stay put and wait for instructions.
Someone was screaming and crying.
Shortly afterward, officers entered, shouting, "Hands up!"
