A special bond with nurses like Pretti

I have been an RN for more than 30 years, many of them working in ICU. I did not know Alex Pretti personally but still connect deeply to a fellow nursing colleague. Nurses understand nurses, especially those of us who care for our veterans.

I can assure the lay person that the need to restrain a person does not equate to inflicting harm or deadly force. Patients may become combative when they are withdrawing from substances like alcohol or drugs, if they are confused or hurt. I’ve had to yell for help from other nurses and doctors and even called security to help me restrain these confused patients. I've seen nurses get pushed, grabbed, bitten and in some instances punched. At times we have had to use sedatives to get them to relax.

But, never in my over 30 years of nursing have I seen a caregiver injure a patient that needed to be restrained.

As nurses, it is part of our ethical practice to do no harm. We are helpers. It becomes a reflex to come to the aid of those in need. Alex Pretti was a helper. Alex Pretti responded to someone who needed help. When he did, he was pepper sprayed, beaten on the ground by multiple assailants, then shot multiple times.

Had ICE cared about human life or been trained properly in their jobs, they could have made non-deadly choices to mitigate the situation. If I, a petite 5-feet-tall RN, can practice ways to restrain a person double my size, there is no excuse for the deadly force used by these agents.

We are all losing right now. The killing of Alex Pretti is a loss of our humanity and a loss of a human being who mattered.

Mercirosa de Leon

Arlington Heights