Jason Aldean turned to Instagram to mourn the death of the security guard who saved his life during the 2017 Las Vegas shooting.
“Man this is a hard post to write. We lost one of our boys today,” the country music icon posted Wednesday, referring to guard Ryan “Rhino” Fleming.
Fleming, he said, “was the person who pulled me offstage during the Route 91 shooting and put his life in danger to take care of me and my crew.”
Aldean was famously performing on stage during the Route 91 Harvest music festival when deranged gunman Stephen Paddock opened fire on the packed crowd of 22,000 country music fans. Sixty people were killed during the shooting on the Las Vegas Strip.
The image accompanying Aldean’s Instagram post shows the singer leaning on the shoulder of Fleming, who is sporting a black T-shirt, with an unidentified man wearing a University of Georgia T-shirt.
Aldean, a Georgia native, and Fleming were lifelong friends, Aldean wrote.
“He was a bouncer at our favorite bar in Macon when he was 18, then went to work for the Sheriffs dept as he got older,” the crooner said. “When it came time for me to hire a security guy that I knew would always look out for me and my family, there was no question for me that person was Rhino.”
Additional photos with the post show Fleming side by side with Aldean at various tour stops.
“He was a good man and an even better friend,” the country star wrote. “We will all miss you brother and thank you for having my back all these years. We love ya Rhino! RIP.”
Aldean did not reveal Fleming’s cause of death.