But Lunsford said that as a Christian he forgave Hasan because “I can’t heal if I don’t forgive him”.
“We’re taught that you can ask for forgiveness with your last breath and I think that’s what he did [Hasan] should do,” he added.
Giving his account of what happened that day, he said Hasan got out of his chair and jumped onto a counter before pulling out a gun and unleashing rounds.
Lunford said he was looking for an exit through the back door, which was “two or three steps” away from him, when he was first shot above his left eye and then “hit my back twice” as he crawled behind a desk.
“At that moment I played dead,” he said. As Hasan continued, he grabbed a nearby wounded soldier and went outside, where Lunsford said Hasan came up behind them and shot him again.
One memory he said “disturbed” him from the day was of a woman telling Hasan she was pregnant.
“We heard a gunshot and the last thing that girl said was, ‘Oh my God, my baby, my baby.’
Lunsford said staff do not carry weapons in medical facilities, and that Hasan “took the coward’s way out” to attack them there.
“And then for him to say that he is fighting for his cause? I read the Koran, and everything he said he was in the Koran is not supported by the Koran,” he explained.
Hasan’s execution was announced by the Pentagon earlier this week, in what will be the first military execution in more than 60 years.
Legal experts have told the BBC that there are a number of hurdles surrounding the live stream of this could mean it is successfully challenged in court.
Some politicians were vocal in their opposition.
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy told CNN it was “disgusting”, while Republican Senator Thom Tillis said public executions were what “oppressive dictators” did.
“It shouldn’t be happening in America,” he added in a post on X., external