ORLANDO, Fla.—Rodney Sumter, 27, was shot three times in the Pulse nightclub Orlando shooting and First Coast news has confirmed that he is from Jacksonville Florida.
Sumter is in stable condition following a surgery for the bullet wounds he received while bartending at Pulse in Orlando on Sunday.
According to a family member he is scheduled for another surgery this morning to remove the bullet from his back. Both of his arms are broken, though he is reportedly in good spirits.
Sumter attended Nease High School in 2006 and played football at Jacksonville University.
The kindness of a strangers just may have saved Rodney's life. Valencia College nursing student, Joshua McGill, 26, helped get him to the ER.
McGill and his friends were on the back porch of Pulse when they saw people running and heard, "It's a gun, there's a shooter!" The group jumped the fence to escape and McGill hid under a car.
It was then that he noticed Rodney who was covered in blood. McGill said Sumter was bleeding from both arms and he bear-hugged him in order to help stop the bleeding as he helped to get him to the hospital.
"It'll be okay," McGill said he told Sumter in a phone interview with NBC. "We're almost to the ER, I'm not sure if you're religious or not but I want to say a prayer for you."
McGill said he wasn't sure if Sumter's ramblings were a prayer of if he was just delusional.
Johan Smith was a teammate of Sumter's on Jacksonville University's football team.
Smith said when he heard the news Sunday, it hit home really quick.
"When I found out he got hit 3 times, that's the first thing that came to my mind was 'man I hope he's okay' but God willing it wasn't his time, he had a lot more to do. That was the type of person he was, you know he has a lot more to do, it just wasn't his time when I heard it I was like it can't be, I was like not Rodney, not Rodney," said Smith.
Support is pouring in from Facebook for both McGill and Sumter:
