Istanbul attack: Man survives Turkish nightclub shooting as bullet hits phone

American survives massacre by pretending to be dead

People carry William Jacob Raak, 35, a Delaware business owner originally from Pennsylvania on a stretcher as he returns back home at Ataturk Airport, in Istanbul (AP)

The life of an American man was likely saved by his mobile phone, after it took the full force of a bullet fired in an attack on an Istanbul nightclub, his brother has said.

William Jacob Raak, a business owner from Pennsylvania who goes by the name Jake, was celebrating New Year's Eve in Turkey when he was caught up in the massacre.

Some 180 bullets were sprayed at a 600-strong crowd at the exclusive Reina club – on the shores of the Bosphorus river – leaving 39 people dead.

"When he got shot the bullet hit his phone," Jake's brother Michael Raak told NBC10.

"It went from his hip to his knee but the bullet didn’t hit any major arteries".

Doctors told him the mobile likely saved his brother's life, WPVI-TV reported.

Surgeons removed the bullet, and Jake was due to be discharged soon, Michael said.

Jake – who lives in Greenville, Tennessee – and is originally from Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, was visiting Istanbul with his friends, his brother said.

He was captured on video of the aftermath of the shooting "I was shot in the f****** leg man. These crazy people came in shooting everything."

Later, Jake recalled the attack to NBC News: "Somebody said that there were shots fired and I initially did not believe it until I saw the gunman and he started shooting up the whole place,"

He added that he survived the attack by pretending to be dead after he was shot.

"I just let him shoot me," he said. "You just have to stay as calm as you can [...] I took a bullet."

Jake also said he was "the luckiest person", in the attack that injured 70.

Nearly two-thirds of those killed were foreigners, many from the Middle East.

Isis have since claimed responsibility for the massacre.

Jake is not the first thought to be saved from more serious injury by a mobile phone.

During terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015, one man at the Stade de France said a projectile hit his phone, preventing his "head from being blown to bits", he claimed.