A Tennessee doctor told the heartbreaking story of how she watched her husband die in front of her after he took a bullet for her during this weekend’s Las Vegas shooting.
When gunshots rang out at the Route 91 Harvest Festival Sunday night, 48-year-old Heather Melton says her husband Sonny, 29, jumped into emergency mode – shielding her from the gunfire.
‘When we realized it was gunshots going off and not fireworks like everyone thought, I said let’s get down and he said, “No, we’ll get trampled. Let’s go, let’s go.”
‘He wrapped his arms around my back and as we started to run, I felt him get shot in the back and we well to the ground.
‘At that point, there was still gunfire all around us and people were lying on the ground and I tried to perform CPR on him in the field,’ Mrs Melton, a surgeon, told the Today show Wednesday morning.
Heather Melton was attending the Route 91 Harvest Festival with her husband Sonny on Sunday when gunfire rang out
Mrs Melton says her husband shielded her from the gunfire, but then was shot himself. Above, the couple at the festival
When asked if she knew her husband was dying, Mrs Melton said she did.
‘As I was giving CPR he began to bleed from his mouth,’ she said.
Mrs Melton says she started screaming for help, and someone ran to her aid once the gunfire stopped.
‘I don’t know who they were but a man ran out and put Sonny over his shoulder and ran across the field. He put him in the back of a pick-up truck with two other victims and he performed CPR on Sonny the entire way to the hospital,’ she said.
Even after rushing him into the emergency room, the men who rescued her husband stayed with by her side.
‘They stayed with me the entire time,’ she said. ‘We were on lockdown in the hospital and they stayed by my side. I don’t know their names. I was too much in shock to even ask, but I’m very grateful that I wasn’t left alone.’
Sonny Melton (pictured) died after being rushed to the hospital in a pick-up truck by Good Samaritans
Her husband passed away in the hospital, leaving Mrs Melton widowed and far away from her friends and family in small town Big Sandy, Tennessee.
In her interview, Mrs Melton revealed that she and her husband married just last year and were very much in love.
We loved being together and people felt how much we loved each other and I will carry that with me forever. I don’t know that I’ll ever experience that kind of love again, but the days I had with him were worth every minute.
‘It was a love that I had never experienced before. It was the kind of love that fill you up every single day.
‘We loved being together and people felt how much we loved each other and I will carry that with me forever.
‘I don’t know that I’ll ever experience that kind of love again, but the days I had with him were worth every minute,’ she said.
Recently, Sonny had started working with his wife directly at the hospital, as her surgical assistant in the operating room.
‘It just gave us the opportunity to be together even more and we had a lot of enjoyment in that,’ she said.
Heather and Sonny married a year ago, and worked together at a hospital in Tennessee
Heather is a surgeon and Sonny is a nurse. He recently started working as her operating room assistant
Mrs Melton says she’s not sure she’ll have a love like Sonny ever again
Mrs Melton said she wanted to speak out about her husband to draw attention to the good person he was
‘I didn’t want to do this at all but I did not want the negative person to outshine the good souls that were lost and I wanted the world to know how good Sonny was,’ Mrs Melton said
She described her husband as a warm-hearted caring person who could light up a room with his ‘infectious’ smile.
In the time they were together, she says he received dozens of letters from his former patients, praising him for the care he gave.
She’s still reeling from the shock of his death, and says she’s just taking things ‘breath by breath’.
But she felt it was important to speak out about her husband so that he and the other victims are remembered, and not their killer.
‘I didn’t want to do this at all but I did not want the negative person to outshine the good souls that were lost and I wanted the world to know how good Sonny was.
‘My son said to me, “Sonny is an international hero…well, he was always out hero before this even happened.” So this didn’t just happen one night, but he knows that his mother was saved by Sonny,’ she said.