The mass shooting at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport hit close to home for one Clarksville man.
The nephew of Steven Pray had just landed at the airport from a mission trip in Haiti before the gunman opened fire in a terminal early Friday afternoon.
His nephew, Nathan Pray, had just gotten his luggage from baggage claim around ten minutes before police said 26-year-old Esteban Santiago shot and killed five people and injured six others.
"I think about all the families who will never see their loved ones alive again. I always wonder how I'd feel if it was one of my family members, and I got a small taste of that on Friday," Steven said.
Nathan told NewsChannel 5 via FaceTime that the shooting happened at a different terminal. Some members of his group heard the gunshots, but he knew something was wrong when people started yelling and running towards him, including TSA agents.
His group split up during the mass pandemonium.
"One group went and hid in a closet behind a kiosk and they had to barricade themselves. Our group leader dove on a girl and covered her up because he thought any minute there will be more shootings," Nathan recalled. "We grabbed kids and helped people get out."
Nathan and some of his team were eventually led out of the airport to the tarmac to join hundreds of other people with little to no information. They stayed on the tarmac for up to eight hours as the investigation was underway.
"Everybody was just on edge and crying. It felt like a movie," Nathan added. "Majority of our phones were dead, so we were having trouble communicating and accounting where everybody was."
It was around 1 a.m. on Saturday before everyone could reunite and leave the airport. The group drove from Florida to Atlanta and took a bus to Pikeville, Kentucky where the students attend college.
Santiago was federally charged and could receive a maximum punishment of execution.
The Iraq war veteran had a semi-automatic handgun that he appeared to have legally checked on a flight from Alaska.
