David Hernandez has an extensive background in nutrition and personal training, which created the perfect recipe for success, but David was still training clients privately as he worked on his own process in the pursuit of competitive bodybuilding. 

He enjoyed helping people who wanted to transform their lives by changing their lifestyle in the area of health and fitness, but he really didn’t speak out publicly about what he did. However, all that changed in 2018 when David found himself on his deathbed. He went on a mission trip to Haiti that changed his life forever. 

David went to Haiti with a performing arts team. They were there to help, support, and encourage the kids in a children’s home outside the capital city of Port-au-Prince. 

 The missionary who runs the place does his best to create a family style atmosphere, not an easy task with 67 children, but they all call him “Daddy.”

The kids were immediately taken with David’s size and build. The boys would test his strength by seeing how many of them could hang from his arms. It became a special way he connected with them, and they would all run and jump on him whenever they saw him. 

Mostly these kids just needed to be loved, and David’s heart and his compassion for people, especially for kids, was the perfect mix, and he made a huge impact during his time in Haiti.

David’s experience in Haiti not only had a tremendous impact on his own life and the lives of the children in that home, but also on the kids in other children’s homes and orphanages in the area, as well as the adults who work with the children and the people of Haiti.

Although David had an incredible experience in Haiti, at the same time, it almost killed him! Five days after he returned to the United States, he ended up in the ER with a fever and he was so weak he could barely stand. He was completely incapacitated, and the doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong. They suspected it was a tropical disease that he’d picked up in Haiti, but they didn’t know which one. All they knew was that his whole body was in excruciating pain and they didn’t know why!  

After two days of testing and six misdiagnoses, a doctor who happened to be in town from Puerto Rico was consulted, and he immediately recognized that they were dealing with Dengue Fever, he’d seen it many times. 

He walked into David’s room and said, “You’ll feel like you’re going to die, and you might die; it all depends on if your body has the will to keep on fighting or not.” and then he walked out of the room. 

Dengue Fever is known as The Bone Crushing Disease, and that’s exactly what it felt like it was doing to David. At that point, with a 105 degree fever and a body racked with pain, David was giving up and saying, “It isn’t worth it, I just want to die so the pain will stop.” But he didn’t die! In the end it was confirmed that not only did he have Dengue Fever, but three other tropical viruses as well, and the doctor said he didn’t know how David was still alive. 

Truthfully, if it wasn’t for God, and because he was so healthy and in the best shape of his life, David would have died. He lost over 60 lbs in 11 days, and even though he lived, the pain and other side effects of the virus lasted for many years after he was released from the hospital! David was in and out of the ER so many times in the weeks following his initial recovery that the ER staff recognized him and began to call him the “Dengue Fever guy.”