How compassionate Waterford boy killed in crash is giving even after death

Adam Davis was a military medic. When he watched in horror as his 9-year-old son, Johnny, rode his bike into the path of a pickup and was struck Tuesday evening, he knew his training and experience would be of little to no use to him.

The two were on a quick ride from their Enid Drive home over to the Tuolumne River, just to dip their feet and cool off a bit. Johnny was on a new bike — one he paid for after doing yardwork and selling lemonade after his former bike was stolen.

So before setting out, Adam made sure Johnny could ride it safely, which included checking the brakes. He told Johnny to be careful on the Tim Bell Road hill that lay ahead.

Adam rode in front, frequently looking back to see that Johnny was keeping up OK. But on Tim Bell, about half a mile into their ride, the father started to look back, just in time to see Johnny fly by him “with a big smile on his face, like he was just going fast and having a great time.”

He realized Johnny was going too fast on the hill approaching Yosemite Boulevard, and he yelled for him to stop.” And he tried and couldn’t stop soon enough,” Adam said, sobbing outside his home Wednesday afternoon as he recounted what happened. “I saw it all. I ran down there as fast as I could and by the impact I knew my son was probably dead. I ran down there anyways, praying to God that he would spare my son.

“I grabbed him, and he was so hurt. I tried to save him. ... I’m trained to save lives and I couldn’t save my son.”

Adam wasn’t allowed to ride with Johnny in the ambulance to Memorial Medical Center — “When they told me I couldn’t go, I knew it was the worst” — so he raced home to tell his wife, Justine, that they might lose Johnny. At the hospital, they were told that, yes, their little boy was gone.

The ride father and son took Tuesday was one of the ways Adam was trying to spend more time with his children, he said. Adam and Johnny also would play chess and video games together. In recent months, he felt he’d been told by God to drive home the point to Johnny and his 11-year-old sister, Evelyn, that only the Lord knows how much time anyone has on Earth.

He wanted the kids to appreciate each and every day, and he wanted to impart fatherly knowledge to Johnny especially, like how to do home repairs, mow the lawn and such. He and Justine were so proud that the 9-year-old recently crawled beneath the sink and made a plumbing repair so that Adam, coming home from a 12-hour day at work as an industrial mechanic, wouldn’t then face that chore, too.

“I had no idea God was talking to me about my son,” Adam said. “I thought I was preparing my children to lose me someday, or lose their mother, the way it’s supposed to be,” not parents outliving their kids.

God’s purpose is greater than his own, Adam knows. Still, he said, he can’t help it — he wants his son back. Johnny was raised in Waterford Community Baptist Church since birth, his father said. “We gave him to the Lord and said, ‘Lord, this is your boy and we’ll raise him as best we can for you, just don’t take him home too early, you know?’

“He called him home and I’ve got to deal with it.”

In his short life, Johnny touched a lot of hearts, said Cari Staley, children’s pastor at Community Baptist. “He was an amazing young man, a very happy boy filled with love from his family and friends,” she said. “He was compassionate. He loved to talk about the Bible and about God, and that was an important part of his life and his life with his family.”

Staley praised Adam and Justine as excellent parents, dedicated to Johnny, Evelyn and their younger children, Ezra, 3, and Joleene, 1. The couple, who were high school sweethearts, are approaching their 18th wedding anniversary. Justine, recently home from a three-day hospital stay for surgery, was being comforted by family and friends Wednesday.

Adam shared a story that illustrates Johnny’s giving nature. The would-have-been fourth-grader, home-schooled through Hickman Charter School, told his mother not long ago that when he’d be having lunch with other charter school students, they often had cool food from places like Taco Bell, while he always had a homemade lunch and “no goodies.”

So one day, Justine packed Oreos in his lunch. Classmates saw what he had and, “of course, he gave every single one away, didn’t save any for himself,” Adam said. When one of the kids realized Johnny had given away all the Oreos, the other boy broke his in half to share back with his friend. That led all the kids who were sitting there to share their snacks, too, Adam recalled Johnny telling him.

As Justine and Adam were with their late son Tuesday night, “We decided that he would give, if he could, anything to save a life. I’m not really into organ donating, but my son would be. If he could help somebody as his last service to this world, he would.

“We found out today that they’re going to take his corneas and his heart. So he probably can give sight to two people and save somebody with his heart.

“I hope someday I can see into those eyes and hear that heart, even though it’s not in my boy’s body, ’cause that was my boy.”

A gofundme.com account has been set up to help the Davis family. Donations can be made at https://www.gofundme.com/davisfamilyof6.

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This story was originally published July 25, 2018 at 4:58 PM.