Lowcountry couple’s crash leads them to advocate for stricter reckless driving laws

BLUFFTON, S.C. (WSAV) – Tom and Spring Davis are still recovering from a terrible crash Valentine’s Night on the busy streets of downtown Bluffton.

An accident that led to serious injuries, long hospital stays and lasting damage. An accident that may have contributed to her mother’s death. An accident they say could have been avoided.

But as they continue to heal, they are focused not just on themselves, but the man responsible for the crash; worried that the man could walk away with a relative slap on the wrist.

All because of a law that is not on the books in South Carolina. A law the Davis’s are working to change.

“I just remember I was going to turn the side of her car. And then that’s the last thing I remember,” says Tom Davis.

Tom Davis’ last memory of Valentine’s Day 2024 was the moment of impact. He was taking his wife, Spring, and mother-in-law, Colleen Gontaovic, to dinner for the holiday. He left the restaurant and made the turn onto Highway 46 in Bluffton when he was hit broadside. His car flipped 3 times.

“The next day I woke up in trauma unit upstairs. I had a fractured spine, my diaphragm and liver and pancreas were damaged from bleeding,” says Davis. “I had a balloon in my heart, an offending aorta of 4.5 and I couldn’t breathe.”

Tom says his wife, Spring, suffered major injuries of her own, spending 10 days in the Intensive Care Unit

“Her pelvic area was fractured. She had a broken pubic bone, a broken tailbone, and a broken bone in her foot. She should not be here now.” says an emotional Tom.

Tom, still devastated about hurting his wife in the accident, suffered another blow. His mother-in-law, Colleen, later died while healing at a rehabilitation facility.

As he dealt with his injuries in a medical facility, he was then given a ticket by the South Carolina Highway Patrol for making an illegal turn.

“When I thought that I had been involved in almost killing my wife and then my mother-in-law… I felt like my life was over,” said Tom Davis.

As the couple recovered and dealt with their grief, they felt like something didn’t feel right. Tom was a safe driver. What happened??

So they enlisted the help of lawyers Tabor Vaux and Ben Shelton. The legal team got the “black box” from the car and uncovered the truth.

“So most modern cars, all modern cars, and depending on how old they are, they have either called an event data recorder or it’s called an airborne airbag control module. And if you have the right tools, you can go into that car and extract the data. You don’t have to do anything to the car that destroys the contents of the car.” said Ben Shelton, Davis’s lawyer. “As long as you can get an inspection of the vehicle and the vehicle’s preserved, you can extract that data and that data gives you I’m not an expert in reading the data, but the data based on my experience, gives you several different data points within usually 5 seconds prior to the accident, before the collision, the airbags being deployed.

“It was able to show us that (the other driver) Francisco Rodriguez’s vehicle was driving at 87 miles an hour within 3 seconds of impact and over 80, 80 miles an hour at impact,” explains Shelton. “And no brake was applied until approximately a second before impact. When you’re going 87 miles an hour, you’re going over 127 feet a second. So, they didn’t have a chance and no one in their position would have had a chance.”

With new information in their hands, the South Carolina Highway Patrol changed their report finding the other driver, Francisco Rodriguez at fault.

But as the Davis’s wait to see if Rodriguez will get charged, the couple was shocked to find out something else. He may walk away from this crash without penalty.

“There’s reckless driving that involves a death and that’s a felony,” explains Shelton. “Reckless driving is a misdemeanor, and it carries up to 30 days in jail. But practically no one does more than pay a $400 fine for reckless driving if they’re convicted of it, and that’s if they’re convicted. Even if someone is on a hospital bed for the rest of their life, there’s nothing to heighten the charge past reckless driving.”

Now the Davis’s are asking Highway Patrol, lawmakers, anyone to change that law. Change the rules so someone has to pay. Someone has to be responsible for what they do behind the wheel. Spring Davis says it’s not just for them but for her mother and for the next person who gets hit like this.

“And if not him, someone else who realizes that there’s just no repercussions if you do something like that,” says Spring. “What would it mean to you to get I mean, in this tragedy that you’re dealing with to get a law change that could protect future people and situations that would be kind of a tribute to my mother?”

“We could have Coleen’s law on the books, that would mean so much to have that in her name. If you’re that reckless and you caused this bodily injury, then you will have some sort of recourse and these people will be held accountable that did this. That’s the future.”

The SC Highway Patrol is still looking into this crash. So far, no charges have been filed.

There is a law for DUI with Great Bodily Injury and even one for Boating Under the Influence with Great Bodily Injury. But not a similar one for reckless driving.

The Davis’s and their legal team of Tabor Vaux and Ben Shelton have reached out to several lawmakers to change this law. While they say the response has been positive no bill has been created yet.