Robert Hopwood

The Desert Sun

Editor's note: Spoilers ahead.

The most recent episode of MTV's "Floribama Shore" was intensely emotional for Nilsa Prowant, who opened up with viewers about the death of her best friend.

The emotional episode that aired on Thursday night began with Codi Butts inviting everyone to South Carolina in hopes that a visit to his hometown would help them deal with stress.

On the way to Butt's parents' home, Prowant took a wrenching side trip with Mattie Breaux, Aimee Hall and Candace Rice to Nashville, where her best friend was killed last year.

Her friend, Staff Sgt. Jorge Alejandro Perez Hernandez, was a 2010 La Quinta High School graduate who died Jan. 1, 2019, in Nashville. He was 26.

More:Former LQ wrestler dies after being run over by tour van in Nashville, Tenn.

Hernandez was home in the Coachella Valley in 2018 during the week of Christmas, then traveled to visit friends in Colorado during the last weekend of the year. He then traveled to Nashville, where he spent New Year's Eve and the start of 2019.

After 11 p.m. on Jan. 1, 2019, according to police, Hernandez tried to board a Dodge Sprinter with a tour group in a pay lot, but was told by the driver that he didn’t belong with the group and would not grant him entry.

Police told The Tennessean in Nashville that Hernandez then asked the driver of the van if he wanted to fight, and a police report states that the driver closed the van’s sliding door and drove out of the parking lot. Hernandez hopped onto the vehicle’s running board and tried opening the door as the van pulled away.

Hernandez apparently fell from the running board and was run over by one of the van’s rear tires, the initial investigation revealed. The driver, who told police that he was unaware that Hernandez had been run over, continued out of the parking lot with passengers until located by police.

Since Hernandez's death, Prowant has openly grieved for him. Five days after he died she tweeted, "I don't think living without him will be easy or anything I'll ever get use to... but I will try."

With the support of Breaux, Hall and Rice, Prowant took a memorial to the spot where Hernandez died during Thursday's episode. She openly wept as she read a letter to Hernandez. She also was seen kneeling by the memorial and sobbing, while her friends gave her time to herself.

"In all 3 summers in the beach house tonight’s episode of #mtvfloribamashore is by far the toughest night I experienced....BUT I get to honor my best friend Jorge," she wrote on Instagram.

Season 3 was filmed last summer, only a few months after Hernandez's death, according to a tweet by executive producer SallyAnn Salsano.

On Nov. 14 Prowant shared a photo of her and Hernandez with the message, "I love you, I miss you! Keep watching over me and I’ll keep making your proud!"

A couple of months before his trip to Nashville, Hernandez was deployed to the Florida Gulf Coast to help people recover from Hurricane Michael, which pounded the region in October 2018. He chose to stay in Panama City, where he continued assisting the recovery efforts.

"He would go in the middle of the night, house-to-house, to see what they needed," close friend Christian Ramirez told The Desert Sun. "Then, he'd go out and get it for them. That's who he was."

Desert Sun reporter Andrew John contributed to this report.