As if surviving the Orlando, Florida, mass shooting wasn’t bad enough, Patience Carter now has to fend off conspiracy theorists who insist the Philadelphia native is a “crisis actor” who was part of a staged event. As in most mass shootings, it didn’t take long after 49 people were killed at Pulse nightclub for the keyboard warriors with way too much time on their hands to cook up conspiracy theories about how this marked yet another made-up tragedy. They quickly pounced on Carter in part because she was an intern for a local Fox affiliate WTFX.
First a YouTube video was posted that focused on the fact that the New York University student is a Fox intern. Then someone Photoshopped the time stamps on pictures from her Instagram profile to make it seem as though she had posted photos of herself uninjured after the shooting.
Carter, whose friend Akyra Murray was killed in the attack, posted a photo of her right leg in a cast on Instagram on Friday as she was discharged from the hospital, thanking hospital staff and supporters. She also expressed thanks to the nutjobs. “Thank you to all the skeptics that believe my pain isn’t real, it’s your outrageous insensitivity that makes me want to heal even faster, and grow even stronger,” Carter wrote.
