Air Force Veteran, Who Was Alex Pretti's Patient 2 Weeks Ago, Recalls How the Nurse 'Comforted' and 'Helped' Him (Exclusive) By Wendy Grossman Kantor

When Alex Pretti appeared on the local news, Minneapolis Air Force veteran Sonny Fouts immediately recognized him. Just two weeks ago, Pretti was the ICU nurse who cared for Sonny, 71, all night after a major surgery.

“I’m saddened,” Sonny tells PEOPLE of Pretti’s death. “I’m saddened to the deepest part of my heart.”

Sonny and his significant other, Kimberly Fouts, met Pretti, 37, on Jan. 12, when the 71-year-old underwent a descending aorta aneurysm repair procedure at the VA Medical Center, where the nurse was employed.

The surgery took nine hours, and Sonny was then admitted to the ICU, where he was cared for overnight by Pretti.

During the surgery, Kimberly had been waiting in the family room from 6 a.m. until 5 p.m., when she was told that she could visit Sonny in his ICU room.

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“I walked in, and Sonny’s just hooked up to so many machines and needles and tubes, and Alex was his nurse and he just lightened the situation,” Kimberly recalls. “There are nurses who come in and don’t really say anything, and Alex was not like that. I appreciated that I immediately felt comfortable with him. And I felt that Sonny was in good hands.”

“I do remember how he comforted me, helped me, did his job,” adds Sonny, a retired musician who played saxophone and guitar and was a singer-songwriter. “He made me feel as comfortable as possible. He made me laugh a few times — and I certainly didn’t feel like laughing.”

Sonny appreciated that Pretti comforted and cared for Kimberly, too.

They both recognized the nurse’s face when they saw it on the news on Saturday, Jan. 24, after Pretti was fatally shot by federal officers in Minneapolis.

“It’s very sad. I hate it,” Sonny says of Pretti’s death. “I’m not a Democrat. I’m not a Republican. But what the hell’s going on in this city of ours?”

The veteran tells PEOPLE he’s had a headache and a stomach ache, as well as trouble sleeping, since he learned what happened to Pretti.

“I don’t like looking at the TV about it. I don’t want to read any newspaper stories,” he says. “I don’t use the word ‘hero,’ but I guess I could say that.”

Without Pretti, and the medical treatment he received, Sonny says, “I might not have been here.”

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PEOPLE also spoke with Dr. Shaukat, who hired Pretti as a research assistant in 2014 and worked with him until 2020, as well as wrote his recommendation for nursing school. She says she was “absolutely shocked” by the news of his death.

“I’m just so aghast that he got caught up in all of this,” she says. “He was not a troublemaker. He did not have crazy extreme views, at least that he expressed to us. He just was a good citizen and he cared for his fellow citizens. The fact that got him beaten and killed is just devastating.”

Dr. Shaukat remembers Pretti as being “just a joy” to work with. “He was just a really sweet person that you could just talk to. No pretense. No complicated factors. Just who he was is how he came across,” she tells PEOPLE. “He was very supportive if you ever needed him to do something — you never had to think twice.”