Caylon Davis and his twin brother Camron both have a competitive nature. The two brothers spent most of their lives playing sports competitively. But in December, Caylon would go on to win the game of life.
Caylon, a freshman at Lane College on a full ride scholarship for football was spending one of his last nights home from winter break with his friends and family. He was having a “bro’s night” with a bonfire in a barrel and listening to music on their driveway.
“We was sitting right there for a little minute,” Davis said.
“I decided to take the gas can, like I’m always good with gas my Dad always taught me like plenty of times the tip of the gas can alway catches on fire so like I know how to put it out.”
But in a matter of seconds, Caylon was engulfed in flames.
“When I knew there was a problem when I had tried to like put it out my hand caught on fire and like all of a sudden when I heard, it sounded like a fire cracker like sizzling,” Davis said.
“As soon as I heard that that’s when the gas went off and I like blew five yards into the ditch.”
Caylon said he was on fire for about 15 seconds.
“My brother he came and I actually felt the tackle but I didn’t know it was him,” Davis said. “He put me out and I had a friend across the street him and my brother put me out.”
Caylon said after crawling out of the ditch he came towards the house. His sister ran calling out for their mother Hollis Wilson.
“When I looked out the front door I looked out to the street and you know I saw people out there putting out a fire,” Wilson said.
“And under the car port he was coming to walk towards me in the dark and he said ‘mama help me.’ As I stood in the doorway he passed me up and when he turned around I could see his face had been burned his chest his hands. Just everything had been burned.”
Caylon was then taken to Lady of Lourdes Medical Center.
“They put him on a ventilator and they had him heavily sedated of course,” Wilson said. “And they immediately took him to the burn unit.”
Caylon would spend 20 days in the burn unit, and the doctors said he had burned more than half of his body.
“He began to have surgeries, that were scheduled twice a week in order to help clean his skin, you know get the burned skin away from him,” Wilson said.
His twin brother Cam said he learned from movies to tackle his brother to put out the fire.
“After I went and visited him like the day it happened I came back here I really didn’t wanna come back to the house,” Cam Davis said.”But like soon as I got here I broke down crying. I really didn’t sleep or eat for like four days.”
Wilson said she wanted to honor her son Camron and their neighbor Roy after their heroic act with a “Citizens Life Saving Award” at a Patterson City Council meeting earlier this week.
“I wanted it to be something that they can look at years to come,” Wilson said. “That was a small token of my appreciation there’s nothing that I could ever give to them that will show them the magnetutude of my appreciation how much I care, how much I love them.”
Appreciation and love that Wilson said will last a lifetime.
Davis plans to return back to Lane College for this fall.
