GREENVILLE, Del. (AP) — A Delaware man wounded in an attack at a New Year's Eve celebration in Istanbul says he survived by playing dead. 
 
 William Jacob Raak told NBC News he stayed silent and motionless during the attack at a popular nightclub, even after being struck. 
 
 "When he shot me I didn't move — I just let him shoot me," he told NBC (http://nbcnews.to/2i2wzem ). "I was shot when I was already on the ground. He was shooting people that he had already shot." 
 
 Raak, 35, is a small-business owner from Greenville. The State Department said Monday that Raak was the only U.S. citizen injured in the attack in Turkey's largest city. 
 
 Raak told NBC he was with a group of nine people, seven of whom were shot. Raak said he was struck in the hip and the bullet traveled to his knee. 
 
 "I was probably the luckiest person in the whole thing," he said. "I do find myself very fortunate." 
 
 Istanbul Gov. Vasip Sahin has said the attacker, armed with a long-barreled weapon, killed a policeman and a civilian outside the Reina club before entering and firing at people partying inside. At least 39 people, mostly foreigners, were killed. Dozens were injured. 
 
 The Islamic State group on Monday claimed responsibility for the shooting. Turkish police, meanwhile, detained eight people in connection to the attack but were still hunting for the gunman, who disappeared amid the chaos. 
 
 Raak's mother, Grace Raak, told The Associated Press on Monday her son was visiting Istanbul to celebrate his birthday, which was Wednesday. 
 
 "We are praying for those that were injured, for their speedy recovery, and we're praying for the family and friends of those who lost loved ones," Grace Raak said. 
 
 She said it was her understanding that her son was to arrive home Tuesday night. 
 
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 Associated Press journalist Kathy Matheson in Philadelphia contributed to this report. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 / Updated By Richard Engel 
 
 ISTANBUL — An American shot during the Istanbul nightclub rampage told NBC News he survived the ordeal by playing dead, remaining silent and motionless even after the gunman shot him. 
 
 Jake Raak was one of about 60 people injured during a rampage in and around the Reina nightclub early New Year's Day. Thirty-nine people were killed — most of them foreigners. 
 
 Authorities were engaged in an international manhunt Monday for the suspect, who fled the scene after the shooting. Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş told reporters Monday that investigators had recovered his fingerprints and expected to be able to identify him soon. 
 
 Kurtulmuş said eight people were already in custody as authorities pursued others connected to the gunman. 
 
 Raak, 35, of Greenville, Delaware, recalled that as the gunman moved through the club spraying bullets, he targeted people who were lying on the floor. 
 
 "When he shot me, I didn't move — I just let him shoot me," he said. "I was shot when I was already on the ground. He was shooting people that he had already shot." 
 
 ISIS claimed responsibility for the shooting Monday, identifying the attacker as "a heroic soldier of the caliphate." It said the attack had been carried out "in response to a call" from its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, although it didn't say whether it directed or merely inspired the perpetrator. 
 
 The gunman fired 120 rounds during his rampage in and around the nightclub about 1:30 a.m. Sunday (5:30 p.m. ET Saturday), police told NBC News. The incident lasted less than 10 minutes. 
 
 Raak was shot in the hip, and the bullet traveled to his knee. He added that he didn't move or make a sound even after he was hit, fearful that the gunman might realize he was alive. 
 
 "You just have to stay as calm as you can," he said. "I took a bullet." 
 
 Raak was with a group of nine people, he said, seven of whom were shot. 
 
 Raak said he came within inches of the shooter, who walked along a bench that he was lying underneath. 
 
 "I saw him coming, and he shot us all," he said. "Somebody said there were shots fired, and I initially did not believe it until I saw the gunman and he started shooting up the whole place." 
 
 Raak said he felt utterly helpless as the gunman fired his rounds. 
 
 The main suspect in the Istanbul nightclub attack in a video released by Turkish police and Dogan News Agency. Dogan News Agency via AFP - Getty Images 
 
 "As you'd imagine, you're looking at a guy with a gun, and you do not have a gun," he said. "You're thinking of ways you can take him down in some way, but there's not much you can really do — it's a terrorist." 
 
 Still, he said, "I was probably the luckiest person in the whole thing." 
 
 Police in Istanbul released what they said was an image of the suspect taken from security video. 
 
 Twenty-eight of the dead were foreigners, Turkish Health Ministry officials said. Canadian, Iraqi, Saudi, Indian, Lebanese, Tunisian, Kuwaiti and Syrian citizens are among the dead. ||||| ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Shot in the arm and slumped behind a table, Francois al-Asmar played dead as the gunman walked through the exclusive Istanbul nightclub shooting the wounded as they lay on the ground. 
 
 An injured woman is carried to an ambulance from a nightclub where a gun attack took place during a New Year party in Istanbul, Turkey. Murat Ergin/Ihlas News Agency via REUTERS 
 
 Like most of the 39 people killed at a New Year’s party in Reina, a hang-out for the Turkish jet set and moneyed foreigners, the Lebanese radio and TV graduate was a visitor to Istanbul, enjoying a city reputed in the Middle East for its diversity and tolerance. 
 
 “He shot one shot, so we thought - I thought - it was some angry or drunk man ... But a few seconds later, we heard a machine gun,” Asmar told Reuters from his hospital bed. 
 
 “I was hiding behind the table, sitting on the floor, but my shoulder must have been exposed. He was shooting us on the floor ... I acted dead so he didn’t keep shooting me,” he said. 
 
 The lone gunman, still at large, shot dead a police officer and a civilian at the door before walking in and opening fire at random. Witnesses said he shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest). Islamic State claimed responsibility. 
 
 “As soon as he entered the club he started firing and he didn’t stop. He fired non-stop for 20 minutes at least,” said Younis Turk, a French citizen of Turkish origin. 
 
 “We thought that there were several of them because it just didn’t stop. And there was some kind of bombing as well, he threw some explosives,” he said. 
 
 The club was a gathering point for many nationalities that night. Victims included an Indian Bollywood film producer, a Turkish waiter, a Lebanese fitness trainer and a Jordanian bar owner. 
 
 According to a forensics report quoted by the Milliyet newspaper, some of the victims were shot at very close distance or even at point-blank range. 
 
 Women who survived an attack by a gunman, react outisde the Reina nightclub by the Bosphorus, in Istanbul, Turkey, January 1, 2017. REUTERS/Huseyin Aldemir 
 
 Mehmet Yilan, 36, a barman at Reina for 12 years, said the attacker deliberately targeted the most crowded areas of the club, which sits on the shore of the Bosphorus in Ortakoy, an Istanbul neighborhood packed with cafes and restaurants. 
 
 “He stormed in and immediately headed for the people to the left, which is always more crowded ... I wonder if he came here before because he seemed to know where to go,” Yilan said, describing how his manager yelled at people to run. 
 
 “He was shooting randomly but aiming for their upper bodies. He didn’t want to just injure them.” 
 
 Yilan escaped into a back room with five customers and two other bar staff, then went downstairs to a terraced area on the edge of the water. Despite the icy, snowy weather, some people jumped into the water to escape the gunfire. 
 
 “He kept shooting all throughout. I called for our boat which transfers our customers, but he kept firing toward the sea too. The boat couldn’t approach,” Yilan said. 
 
 He spoke to Reuters at the funeral of his colleague, Fatih Cakmak, a security guard who worked at the club and had survived a suicide bombing targeting police at a soccer stadium a few kilometers away just three weeks earlier. 
 
 “ISTANBUL’S BEST NIGHT CLUB” 
 
 Lito German, 47, a Filipino living in Saudi Arabia who works in marketing, was in Istanbul for the first time with his wife and daughter and was approaching the club as the attack began. 
 
 “We were about 100 metres away and started seeing people fleeing toward us. Most were very well dressed, though many were barefoot and looking shaken and scared,” he said. 
 
 “We were actually meant to go to another club, but we didn’t want to be in a very big place due to security issues, and we found Reina by googling Istanbul’s best night club. We thought the most expensive club would have better security.” 
 
 Men lay flowers outisde the Reina nightclub by the Bosphorus, which was attacked by a gunman, in Istanbul, Turkey, January 1, 2017. REUTERS/Umit Bektas 
 
 Armored police vehicles rushed to the scene as more and more people came running out, he said. 
 
 Among the dead were Abis Rizvi, 49, a Bollywood producer who was in the midst of making his second film, and Khushi Shah, a fashion designer in her 20s, both from Mumbai. The Indian government said it was making arrangements to help the families as they come to Turkey to collect the bodies. 
 
 Lebanon sent a plane to carry back the remains of three of its citizens who were among the dead. 
 
 Elias Wardini, 26, a personal trainer, had posted a picture on Instagram a few hours before the attack, posing in the Istanbul snow with another Lebanese victim in her twenties, Rita Shami. 
 
 The club’s owner, Mehmet Kocarslan, said police had taken extraordinary security measures in the run-up to the New Year in neighborhoods on the Bosphorus shore around Ortakoy. 
 
 The U.S. embassy had warned of potential attacks on areas frequented by foreigners, but Kocarslan said there had been no specific threat against his club in particular and that many of the warnings had been country-wide. 
 
 “I really don’t know how this demon, I can’t even call him a terrorist, was able to reach here despite all this intelligence and extraordinary security measures,” he said. 
 
 The incident bore echoes of an attack by militant Islamists on Paris’s Bataclan music hall in November 2015 that, along with assaults on bars and restaurants, killed 130 people. 
 
 “When they’re determined, they’re determined, and there’s nothing to do,” said Turk, who was visiting from France. 
 
 “That doesn’t mean that I won’t be coming anymore. For me Turkey, Istanbul, is one of the nicest cities in the world and I will keep on coming again and again.”
– Jake Raak calls himself "probably the luckiest person in the whole thing"—the "whole thing" being the New Year's Day massacre at a Turkish nightclub. The Greenville, Delaware, resident tells NBC News the shooter walked within inches of the bench he was under, and that when he was shot in the hip, he made no sound or movement so as not to alert the gunman he was still alive. It may have been a life-saving choice: Reuters reports the gunman, who ultimately killed 39, specifically went after the wounded at the Reina club in Istanbul. Raak says that among his group of nine, all but two were shot. The State Department has confirmed he was the only American injured. The bullet that struck him ended up in his knee. His mother tells the AP that her 35-year-old son had traveled to Istanbul to celebrate his birthday, which was last Wednesday. ISIS on Monday claimed responsibility for the massacre. While eight people have been detained, the gunman remains at large.