TikTok sensation Brandon Davis opens up about the car crash that nearly cost him his life
Every morning, it was much the same for Brandon Davis. He would wake up, kiss his wife and kids goodbye and then head to the gym for a quick workout before heading to River City Fire Protection, where he worked as a design engineer.
He never once thought he wouldn't come home.
But on the morning of February 19, 2019, Davis found himself faced with that stark reality, when the car he was driving along highway 153 in Tennessee was hit head on by a distracted driver. He was rushed to the hospital where doctors evaluated his injuries, but it was what they couldn't see that became increasingly concerning.
"They were literally just going to go in with a scope through his belly button just to look inside and make sure everything was okay," remembers Davis' wife Destiny, 26, during an interview with PEOPLE of the couple's life-altering day. "I remember the doctors coming out in the middle of surgery and telling me that he had three lacerations to his liver and a ruptured colon and that he was becoming septic. There was no way he would make it through the night without major surgery."
Image Photography Brandon Davis
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When all was said and done, Davis would spend a total of two weeks in the hospital, not only working to physically heal from the accident, but to emotionally heal from the trauma of it all.
"I looked at (Destiny) at one point and said, 'I don't understand why God would do this?'" Davis, 28, remembers. "I hadn't chased my dreams yet."
Granted, the Tennessee native had chased some. He had played baseball his whole life and had pursued music just a bit, writing songs and playing various gigs with his dad Rick Davis, an accomplished musician who even served as an opener for a Garth Brooks show back in 1988. But the spotlight of Nashville seemed almost unattainable, especially since Davis had a family to support and the need for a stable job.
But sitting in that hospital bed in the winter of 2019, Davis realized he might have had it all wrong.
"At the time, we had three kids and I realized that there was no way I could tell them to chase their dreams…if I wasn't going to chase mine," he remembers.
After a long and tedious recovery, Davis made the decision to give music another shot. Destiny would post random videos of her husband singing on her YouTube and Facebook, while Davis would play local gigs in town. And as the world began to shut down due to the pandemic in 2020, Davis reluctantly entered the world of TikTok.
"I had seen ads for TikTok on Facebook, and it just seemed like it was just a bunch of crazy dances and people trying to be funny," Davis says with a chuckle. "I mean, I had dad jokes but that was about it."
But inside, Destiny knew the growing social media platform held much more for her talented husband. So, she began nonchalantly recording him singing covers from country greats such as Brad Paisley and the late Keith Whitley around the house and it was these videos that would ultimately grab the attention of millions.
"This was our one chance," says Destiny. "If he wanted to do music, this was our opportunity. We didn't know how you get a song out. We didn't know how to record a song. We literally knew nothing at all."
Those days are now firmly behind them, as Davis has not only recently scored a sweet deal with Nashville-based Big Yellow Dog Music but is also in the process of releasing a ton of new music, including his current single "Minus You," which premieres today on PEOPLE.
"It's a small-town breakup anthem," says Davis, a father of now four children who recently recorded a song with his youngest child Easton sitting in his lap. "When you break up in a small town, even if the person moves away, no matter where you go, you're seeing that person in that town because everywhere is where they were, so you can't get away from it.'
Image Photography Brandon Davis
Along with Davis' somewhat sudden success comes the realization that everything that has happened thus far has happened for a reason.
"I remember there being a moment when the music was taking off and we were doing amazing and I looked at him and I was like, 'you remember when you didn't know why God let this happen?' Destiny recalls. "Well, now we know."
"The accident was a humbling experience because you realize just how quick life can go," he adds. "It's amazing to think about how God gave me one more chance."
