ORLANDO, Fla. _ It was 3:30 a.m. on June 12 when a man called 911 in a panic. His ex-girlfriend was in a bathroom at the Pulse nightclub, he said.
"My girlfriend's hiding in the club Pulse, where people are shot and dead and there's like 18 people hiding in the bathroom," he said. "Are you guys sending anybody there?"
The 911 dispatcher calmly explained that law enforcement officers were already in the area, clearing out rooms in the club. She asked the man if he knew which bathroom his ex-girlfriend was in. He said he didn't.
The man kept texting his ex-girlfriend with the dispatcher on the phone.
"They're all scared to death, and they all think they're gonna die," he said.
The Orange County Sheriff's Office released some 911 calls on Tuesday from the attack in June. The calls are from frantic family members and loved ones of people trapped inside the club who could not call authorities themselves.
Previously released records showed dispatchers also spoke with people inside the club. None of those recordings were released.
Tuesday's release did not include calls made to the Orlando Police Department that night by people in the club or the shooter, Omar Mateen. Those recordings are tied up in a lawsuit between the city of Orlando and 27 news organizations, including the Orlando Sentinel.
Mateen was shot and killed by Orlando police officers after a three-hour standoff, during which some club-goers were trapped in a bathroom with him.
The attorney representing the Sentinel and other media organizations in the lawsuit said that Tuesday's release from the Orange County Sheriff's Office supports the argument that the calls are public records and should have been released from the beginning.
"It provides a better picture of the timeline ... and it provides a better picture of the response," Rachel Fugate said.
The citizens of Orlando and the families of the victims deserve to know more about what happened, she said. Fugate challenged Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, who has publicly said that he wants to release the records.
"The sheriff clearly had no problem releasing these records," Fugate said.
The first call to Orange County dispatch came one minute after the shooting started, at 2:03 a.m. A man said he was leaving the club when he heard "more than 10" gunshots.
"We were leaving the club and as soon as we left gunshots were going like crazy," he said.
He was not injured and said he saw numerous police officers around him. Orange County dispatchers tried to transfer him to Orlando police dispatch, but he twice got a busy signal.
Another caller, who worked across the street from the club, remained calm as she told two dispatchers she heard shots fired and, moments later, that police had arrived.
"I was told that the police are already there," the woman said. "And a shot just hit the door of the place that I'm working in."
In two other calls, a neighbor said he heard gunshots in the area and another man who said he lived around the corner from the club said someone was knocking on his door.
Another man said he left the club before the shooting started, but his friends stayed behind.
"Once I got home, like 10 minutes later I got calls from all my friends asking if I'm OK, what's happening," he said. "I called my friend, he told me he got shot, he's in the bathroom, he got shot three times. But I'm not there, I can't do nothing."
At 4:17 a.m., a woman called 911 reporting her brother was hiding inside a unisex bathroom with about 20 wounded people, four of whom were dead.
The woman asked the dispatcher what to tell her brother.
"They need to shelter themselves there (in the bathroom)," a dispatcher told the woman. "If he needs to put the phone down to keep himself safe, then that's what he needs to do."
The last call came into dispatch at 5:03 a.m. _ right as Orlando Police SWAT team members breached a wall to get inside the club.
A man driving to Orlando with his wife told the dispatcher his son was shot and trapped in the bathroom.
"No one is going in for him," he sobbed as the dispatcher assured him that law enforcement is on scene.
People are wondering, he said, "Where's the ambulance? Where's the medics?"
