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The next, he was on his dining room floor, nearly incapacitated.
The 28-year-old Philadelphia native came to around 3 a.m., and tried to stand up. That's when he realized, he'd been shot three times.
Travis-Bey, a bartender at Street Light Kitchen in Drexel Hill, mustered up all of his strength, crawled over to his front porch and began calling for help up and down Greenwood Avenue.
About 20 minutes later, he had the attention of a police officer driving up the block, who called an ambulance.
The last thing Travis-Bey remembers from that night was hearing an EMT say he might not make it. Then, he blacked out again.
Travis-Bey woke up days later at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he learned his road to recovery wouldn't be an easy one: He was paralyzed from the hips down.
More than $17,000 had been raised as of Monday, April 10 on a GoFundMe launched for Travis-Bey by his friend's dad, Michael Lazrus.
"Dom has an amazing amount of support and is getting lots of visitors now that people know where he is," said Lazrus, whose son, Jesse, has been singing in Philly-area choirs including the Epiphany Singers, with Travis-Bey for years. "He has an amazingly positive outlook."
Travis-Bey recently inherited his Greenwood Avenue home from his mom, who moved to North Carolina. Getting the place up and running has proven difficult, as many of the pipes and copper wires had been stolen from it, the mixologist said.
He's been using a noisy generator as he works to flip the home, and wonders if that may have been part of the motive behind the March 21 shooting that forever changed him.
Travis-Bey gave his testimony to Upper Darby police, who are working the investigation, he said. In the meantime, he's focused on his recovery.
"God didn't bring me this far just to leave me here," he said. "I'm taking this whole experience as a blessing and trying to see the silver lining in it."
For starters, he says it's a second chance to repurpose his life and take hold of relationships he's lost over time.
"People are my strength and the reason I keep going is because without my loved ones, I don't know where I’d be," he said. "The outpouring of love I’ve gotten in past couple of weeks has been astounding. I am strong enough and I can bare what’s given to me but friends and family really keep me going."
Among them, Lazrus, who has become Travis-Bey's medical liaison and is hoping to get him into a rehab center so he can begin to learn how to live in his new reality, he said.
Travis-Bey had parts of his kidney, small intestine, and colon removed. He was diagnosed with a Type-B spinal injury, which means he has sensory within his legs, but no motion.
"I can feel everything happening, and can tell the difference between hot and cold," he said,"but I have no ability to move them yet."
The doctor told Travis-Bey it's unlikely he'll be able to walk or stand again, but it isn't impossible and has been done before.
That's all Travis-Bey needed to hear: "I'll do whatever needs to be done."
And that includes spreading gun violence awareness.
"I’ve never been opinionated or vocal about gun violence, but after this happening, I have no choice," he said. "It breaks my heart to think there are people out here who don’t have the support system I have found.
"We have become so jaded and desensitized as a community, and it makes no sense that this has become normal for us, in the City of Brotherly and Sisterly Love — and it’s heartbreaking."
Click here to donate to Dom Travis-Bey.
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