Under the Circumstances: A Story of Triumph After Tragedy

By Romell A. Davis

Hi, my name is Romell Allen Davis and I have a spectacular story to tell you. I was involved in a serious work accident that claimed my left eye. Not only did I lose an eye, I got custody of my three children that same month! I know, it sounds sad right? Well it had the opposite effect with me. I attended barber-school, I became a model, and I hosted a TV show afterward. This book is about my journey, my testimony, and my life, Under the Circumstances. Go out and buy my book, youll love it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 25, 2009
• ISBN: 9781465316370

Romell A. Davis

I think that my purpose for being here is to motivate and inspire people who go through hardships and mishaps. I have a story to tell and I feel truly blessed to have gone through this life-changing experience, as crazy as that sounds. I want you to know exactly what I’ve been through because I believe it will touch you in some way. I want you to know that it’s ok to cry and fall down but after you have read my story, I promise, you will understand that, even through tragedies, you can triumph.

Book preview

Copyright © 2009 by Romell A. Davis.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in

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recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without

permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

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Contents

INTRODUCTION

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER 1

OUCH!!

CHAPTER 2

BEING BACK AT HOME

CHAPTER 3

LOSING MY CDL LICENSE

CHAPTER 4

LOSING MY FATHER

CHAPTER 5

BARBER SCHOOL

CHAPTER 6

HOW I GOT INTO MODELING

CHAPTER 7

THE AFTERMATH

CHAPTER 8

REASON FOR THE BOOK

CHAPTER 9

REACTIONS TO MY ACCIDENT

CHAPTER 10

DOCTOR’S NOTES

CHAPTER 11

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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I think that my purpose for being here now is to motivate and inspire people that have been through hardships and mishaps. To help them to be able to deal with whatever comes their way. I want to give people a better understanding of how to deal with their problems and keep a positive attitude as well.

INTRODUCTION

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A Cincinnati, OH native, I was the only child born to Duretta E. Davis and first son of David Allen Jester on March 16, 1974. Life was always a challenge growing up in Avondale, where crime and struggle is an everyday way of life. My upbringing is what, unknowingly, gave me the strength I would later need to overcome all obstacles thrown my way. My father was sent to jail for shooting two men while being jumped when I was 9 years old. My mother did her best with what little she had. If it did get bad, we were always welcomed to my grandmother’s home to eat or sleep. With scarce money, the simple things became the most significant treasures for me. Like walking home from school with my mom, for instance. I can remember my mother allowing me to bring home animals I found like turtles, frogs, and snakes for pets. She also let me have hamsters, gerbils, and fish. Now I realize that this was her special way of making my life happier. She is a real Christian woman. We went to church every Sunday, prayed before we ate, and prayed before we went to bed. She let me have a friend or two over to spend the night and we would always be on the Atari 2600, playing Pac-Man until we turned the game’s points over. We’d ride our bikes all around the city (She don’t know until now). As long as I made good grades, I was allowed to do anything I wanted. Life was GOOD.

My adolescent days were one of the best times of my life and school was a breeze. Being a live wire, I was always the entertainer of my peers, which kept me in trouble as far as women, jealousy, and envious guys. But it helped to mold the outgoing personality that is now a part of me. I went to the School for Creative and Performing Arts (SCPA), majoring in Art with a Drama minor for three years. Carmen Electra, Jeffery Sams (Waiting to Exhale), and Nick Lachey (98 Degrees), were some of the few I attended school and/or associated with. After going to summer school for math to pass the eighth grade, I didn’t go back there. It seemed too hard plus a lot of the rich students were doing things I didn’t think kids my age did in the inner-city (suicide attempts, depression, etc.). It was hard but I noticed how much I excelled after I stopped attending SCPA and went back to attending public schools. I went to Aiken High School to get away from my peers I grew up with. I didn’t live in Aiken’s district, so I used my uncle’s address to go there. This way, I could concentrate on my work and not easily get caught up with negative people I grew up with. At Aiken High School, I kept an A or B average and got into sports, choir, theater, and other activities to keep me out of the streets. I was even featured in Who’s Who Among American High School Students two years in a row. I was very busy. My senior year, I was not only a male cheerleader (which I only did to go to all the games free and look up the cheerleaders skirts), but was our senior class Vice-President and graduated in the top 5 percentile of my class. I was accepted to all of the colleges I applied to with academic scholarships but chose University of Dayton. At UD, I was not only a playboy; I was into the drama plays. I starred in two Black Box Theater shows, earning me an award for best line delivered in a play. I had the time of my life in college. I also met a ton of great friends at school. After two years at UD, life, as for most people, got in the way of me continuing my goals. I suddenly became an unexpected father and had to work to help take care of things. That’s when truck driving came to mind. Knowing that I needed a career to provide for my daughter, I trained to obtain my Commercial Driver’s License. In 1996, I started working for Coca-Cola. I was earning a very good living until I threw out my back and was off on paid leave. That’s when I enrolled to a community college because I knew I would be off for a while. There, I majored in Audio/ Video Production and assisted in the production of a low budget film called, April’s Fool. After rehab and chiropractic visits, I went back to driving for a living. Driving with no one looking over your shoulder 24/7 just seemed natural to me, but this time I took a position that was less strenuous as before. The story you are about to read is not only one of personal endeavors but of strength and dedication that, I’m sure, you will draw upon. This is my journey. This is my testimony. This is my life . . .

Under the circumstances

CHAPTER 1

OUCH!!

I was in the environmental field for three years dealing with hazardous and non-hazardous waste. I used to wear various protective clothing for various task. If you saw the news when anthrax was going around then you’ll know what I’m talking about. The people that were cleaning the area were wearing the blue suit with the hood, the breathing mask, and the yellow gloves and boots that were taped up so nothing could get in or out. At that job we dealt with so many hazardous materials and environments. The hours were so long at times we had to stay overnight and continue the next morning. You couldn’t plan anything special without giving a month’s notice because we were a 24-hour response team that went out on emergency calls. We did it all. From shoveling hazardous dirt and mud, drum runs, testing samples, cleanups, traveling for weeks at a time, going to refresher classes to keep us informed, CPR training, maintenance in and around the warehouse, and maintenance of our personal equipment. That company was wearing me down and I wanted to be responsible for one or two duties that would give me more time to do things with my kids and myself. So I took a job as a Vacuum driver at a Fortune 500 Company. This was the same year of 9/11 and also the same year the talented R&B superstar, Aayliah’s plane crashed. Little did I know this would be a terrible year for me as well. I felt something odd because I had never flown by plane until October 2001 for a week of training in Houston, TX for this position. This was right after 9/11, and when we were in Houston, a guy panicked the world at the Atlanta airport running past security, got on a plane and got away. His actions delayed flights for the rest of that day and the next but they caught the guy. Come to find out, he forgot his camera and realized it after he got on his flight, which was about to take off. He hurried through the airport and security to retrieve his camera, then ran back to his plane and took off. Security didn’t find him until his plane landed.

I was the new guy at this company that drove the vacuum truck. I loved the idea of only being responsible for vacuuming out oil-water separators, totes, and large holding containers that carried only non-hazardous waste. After that, I would go to CSX Railroad station and offload the waste. There was plenty of paperwork involved but that was normal.

One day, I got a call from Norwood Public Works to give them an estimate on the price of vacuuming out their oil separator. On December 6, 2001 I went there to open up the manhole cover and measure the amount of sludge and oily water that needed to be vacuumed out. That’s when I noticed how big the manhole cover was and I was surprised. It was the biggest manhole cover I’ve ever encountered. However, I was going to get it open and measured the amounts of solids and liquids that needed to be sucked out. Now I usually opened up manhole lids with my small crowbar. And sometimes I needed my screwdriver to clear out the dirt and debris around the lid in order to get the manhole opened enough to get the crowbar in to open it fully. When I tried to clear the manhole cover with my small crowbar, I knew this was going to be a job. I knew my crowbar wasn’t going to clear the debris, let alone open the manhole cover but I was going to try anyway. I was unsuccessful. There was a station by the manhole lid that carried tools so I politely asked a worker there for a screwdriver so I could work this lid. He came out with a