Former VOICE Winner on Near-Death Accident and Sobriety: ‘I Saw the Light’
Movieguide® Contributor
Former THE VOICE winner Sundance Head thought he was going to heaven this week after he was shot by his own gun in a freak accident — but God had other plans.
“I went back for my backpack and noticed that I had left my 22 revolver — it’s an old school revolver just like you would see in a western movie — and I grabbed it in the backpack and I went to put it inside of my Jeep, and I just remember the flash. The gunpowder,” the singer told ET. “I was kind of in shock. I didn’t really understand what happened.”
“The gun had split out of the holster that it was in. When it fell out of the holster, it hit the footstep in my Jeep Wrangler…and shot me in the stomach and it happened so fast,” he recalled. “I couldn’t really comprehend what was going on and so I reached my hand to my stomach to see what was happening and I had noticed that blood was coming through each of the corners of my fingers and so I reached my hand into my pocket to call 911 and realized I didn’t have my phone and my pockets were already full of blood in my blue jeans and so I didn’t know what to do.”
The singer was alone on his rural property. So he ran to his gate next to the highway and tried to flag down someone to help him. After 10 or so cars, one good Samaritan finally stopped. The man called 911 and helped Head calm down and put pressure on the wound.
“I was kind of going numb in my feet and stuff and turning white,” he explained. “I’d lost a lot of blood and the ambulance came. I remember I was never so happy to be put on a stretcher in my life.”
“I was just praying to God and begging him to keep me alive,” he continued. “I told him I had a lot to live for. I didn’t want to die, and…I really thought I was going to die.”
They took Head from Maydale, Texas, to Rusk and then airlifted him to Tyler.
“On that helicopter, I saw the light, man, and I really thought I was done,” the “Darlin’ Don’t Go” singer said. “I just prayed a lot and I felt super peaceful because I knew that in my spirit I had arrived to a spot where I felt super confident that my next walk in the afterlife would be a glorious one. So it was a weird thing, man, because…I pretty much knew that I was dead.”
“I thought how senseless that I was going to die this way from a freak accident like this, and I just thought I wouldn’t see my family again,” he shared. “…I don’t remember anything. I couldn’t hear the helicopter. I couldn’t hear the medic.”
“I was surrounded by my children,” he remembered. “They were holding hands and smiling.”
READ MORE: FORMER VOICE WINNER AIRLIFTED AFTER SHOOTING INCIDENT: ‘THANKFUL TO BE ALIVE’
“I just prayed for my family. I prayed to the Lord to send me into heaven, and then I just prayed prosperity for my children,” he continued. “I prayed for the people that were helping me that they would also be welcomed with prosperity in their lives no matter what happened to me, and…once we landed and they took me into the emergency room, and I was really it was really an out-of-body experience.”
Head saw everything that was happening but was not fully “present.”
“It’s something I’ve just never experienced in my life. I didn’t really know what was going on, and I just remember they wheeled me in there, and I remember this gentleman coming standing next to me while I was in the in the trauma center, and we prayed together,” he said.
The bullet lodged in Head’s abdominal wall, and the surgeon said it was better to leave it where it was than cause damage by removing it. It miraculously missed any vital organs. If the bullet had landed a “centimeter” off in any direction, the doctors say his outcome would have had a different story.
“I’ve told everybody I could: I’ve done this a million times, and I could probably do it a million more times, and it would never happen this way,” Head told ET. “…I’ve got the case actually, but it didn’t have any way to fasten it in, and so it…just slid out in the perfect way where it hit the side of the Jeep it hit, and it fired.”
“I’ve really been through all this for a long time, and I’ve, you know, understood the safety and the dangers of owning firearms and everything, man, and I just could not believe that it happened.”
“This was absolutely the worst case…any area…but thankfully, man, I had you know, the Lord was looking out for me…[I] had some wonderful people stop and help me.”
“I have a lot of life left, and that’s what I was telling these ladies and gentlemen that [were] trying to keep me alive during the whole process, man,” Head said in a video on social media. “I just, really, I’m so thankful for the first responders. They did a wonderful job.”
THE VOICE winner has had it rough these last few years. His career was taking off and then it suddenly dropped when COVID hit, and both of his parents passed away.
“I hit rock bottom, brother, and I was done…I had given up on everything, man, and luckily I had an event in my life,” he explained. “My mother was in hospice, and she had told me on her deathbed that she wanted me to be sober for my family, and that was her wish, and I honor her every day.”
“I’m two years free from alcohol now. My life has really changed. I try to live with and walk with a good spirit and a big heart and I just want to be friends and love everyone that I can and show as much love as I can and… I just knew — I said… ‘Please, this can’t be the time for me to go.’”
He had only recently been feeling like a better man and was walking closer to the Lord.
“I don’t pretend to be something I’m not, man. I’m the perfect sinner. I’ll be the first to tell you that. I do a lot of things that are wrong and probably will for the rest of my life but I’ve come to accept and learn to love myself again, and that’s the most important thing of this whole journey,” he said.
The artist was on a break from his “The Road to Redemption” tour when he got shot. His next event is scheduled for Dec. 6 in Plano, Texas, and it looks like as long as he’s in good health, he’ll be there with his guitar ready to entertain.
READ MORE: HOW SOBRIETY AND FAITH SHAPED THIS COUNTRY STAR’S LIFE
