The wide grin that radiates charm and charisma outshines Billy Davis’s tall, rugged, athletic appearance. Davis calls himself “The Amputee Agent” on social media, but realtor is just one of the many hats he wears. Davis, who wears a prosthetic limb, became a passionate advocate for the limb-loss community after a life-threatening accident. His friends and mentees praise him for his wisdom and approachable nature. For Limb Loss and Limb Difference Awareness Month, Able News sat down with the 51-year-old Brooklyn resident from Kansas to learn more about his journey.
You have been on a remarkable personal journey. Can you share more about your story?
Both my parents were visually impaired. No seeing eye dogs, no canes, but it was a lot more public assistance in terms of buses because we didn’t have a car. I didn’t participate in a lot of activities as a kid. If we couldn’t get there on public transit, or I couldn’t walk or take a bicycle, we just didn’t do it. But it was weirder, to be honest, being a Black kid that grew up in a white neighborhood because we were the only Black kids for miles.
I was always super positive, super inquisitive, super friendly and very talkative. In one of the earliest pictures of me growing up, I’m sitting on the first motorcycle I ever saw. When I moved to New York, I joined a club called Extreme Riders. On Memorial Day weekend, a good friend of mine was having a bachelor party in the Catskills. There was no road to get to the campsite. I got there, but on my way back, something punctured the tire, it leaked out. When I got to the exit, I tried to slow down and the front tire defaulted. I slid into a guardrail post doing 50 miles an hour, feet first. I knew I was hurt and I thought I was going to die there. When I looked up, there’s this older guy standing over me and he saved my life.
I was slipping in and out of comas and eventually had a dream about riding up 6th Avenue on a bicycle and going into a deli and asking for a cheeseburger. And after the guy wouldn’t serve me, I got angry and screamed, ‘Can a brother get a cheeseburger and a coke?’ And that’s when I woke up from a coma.
Prior to the accident, I was a very charismatic, very positive guy that wasn’t sure what he wanted to do next, but after the accident, I found a community of people with disabilities. Given my natural skill set and the fact that I had visually impaired parents, it put me in a frame where I already understood and have empathy for people with disabilities.
How do you honor your “alive day”?
I have dedicated that day to using whatever energies I can to pay it forward to somebody else. I do Cheeseburger Day every year on May 24th. The origin was me contacting all my friends in Kansas and being like, ‘Hey guys, remember that day I didn’t die? I got a cheeseburger!’ That’s my sense of humor. And what I wasn’t expecting was for everyone to hit me back and be like, ‘Okay man. We’re glad you didn’t die. We’re having a cheeseburger for you.’ So, I feel like an “alive day” is a great day for people that came close but didn’t cross over. People that know how valuable life is because they almost had it taken away. It’s just a great opportunity to celebrate the triumph of underdogs.
You have a strong sense of humor. Can you tell us more about being an aspiring comedian?
I have been a fan of comedy ever since I can remember. I tried doing stand-up just to really talk about the leg, to talk about what I was going through, to talk about some of the odd things that I’d seen and was experiencing. Who’s going to have a perspective like mine? Yes, there are other disabled comics, but we’ve all got these perspectives, and I think it’s important to have those out there, especially now when there’s so many nefarious initiatives to erase people with disabilities. Let’s make some people laugh. Just getting on stage and being able to tell funny stories about some of the stuff we go through, I think it’s a blessing and an honor.
Why is it important to raise awareness about the limb loss community? What message would you like to share?
Especially now, we face a world where access to resources, access to proper health care, access to the right to exist and be powerful is slowly being eroded. It’s really easy for people with limb loss to think that they’re the one and the only. It can be really demoralizing. So, if nothing else, be a resource and be a light so that other people can find you and know that things are possible. It’s all about taking your superpower and using it to help somebody else.
Who is Billy Davis?
I, Billy Davis, am a person who, if things go correctly, will be a person that teaches leaders how to teach leaders. I want to be the kind of person that helps amazing people find and cultivate other amazing people. Paying it forward. And my limb loss means I get to carry the privilege of being an ambassador for our community. Not everyone who goes through the things that we go through has the tools that we have. I think that limb loss is a community that found me, so I am happy to leave the community better than I found it. And hopefully, that’s what I’m doing.