Family recounts ‘terrifying’ attack at Grantsville music festival

GRANTSVILLE — A Tooele County family is trying to heal after a horrifying attack by a stranger at a music festival. The seemingly random assault left a father and son bewildered by what happened, as they deal with the serious injuries left behind.

The Davis family attended Country Fan Fest Friday and into the weekend. Mom Amanda Davis said they go every year and camp, and that it’s always a great time.

This year was special, because she said it was the first time their son Hayden went with them. They were celebrating his birthday Saturday with all their kids, friends, and other family members.

“Very good way to spend the 19th birthday. It was a fun first experience, that’s for sure,” Hayden said.

Saturday was also the last night of the festival, so the family stayed up late after the music ended.

Amanda, her husband Brandon, and Brandon’s mother had gone inside their camp trailer to go to bed, and Hayden explained that he was saying goodbye to his friends before heading to bed, too.

As he walked up the steps, he described how someone came up from behind and pulled him down.

“I just remember going to the ground, and then [my dad] came out of the trailer almost immediately, and my friends turned around, and then just kind of just went to a blur after that,” Hayden said.

Upon hearing the commotion, Brandon rushed outside to find a man they didn’t know attacking Hayden.

The man had Hayden’s ring finger in his mouth at one point, biting down and exposing the bone.

“It was just all so fast,” Hayden recounted. “I didn’t know who it was … it was just like, ‘What? What did I do? What’s going on?'”

Brandon’s only thought: Get the attacker off his son.

“That’s all I remember, was diving on him,” Brandon explained.

Brandon was hit and punched so hard in the face that he was knocked out during the scuffle. Other friends rushed in to help, trying to get the violent aggressor under control.

Amanda ran out of the camper, saying that everyone was fighting on top of an unconscious Brandon.

“Brandon was knocked out on the ground in a pool of blood, and his eye was completely black,” Amanda said. “It was complete chaos.”

Amanda called 911, saying that the man then got up and ran into their trailer, where her mother-in-law and other kids were.

“They were freaking out trying to get him out of the trailer,” she said. “It was just all a blur, like I thought my husband was dead.”

Brandon explained that when he found consciousness a few minutes later, he didn’t know he had been knocked out and had been beaten up by the stranger.

Amanda said the guy who assaulted her husband and son “was screaming at the top of his lungs” during all of this.

Tooele County Sheriff’s deputies arrived and arrested the assailant while paramedics got to work on Hayden and Brandon, loading them up in ambulances.

The Sheriff’s office told KSL TV the man they arrested, 26-year-old Ueligitone Hinckley Niupulusu, was yelling and incoherent, and needed to be sedated.

“Literally the last 30 seconds of a fun-filled weekend ended in terror,” Amanda said.

On Monday, the Tooele County deputy attorney filed two charges of aggravated assault with serious bodily injury, and a third charge of mayhem due to nearly biting off Hayden’s finger.

Both father and son are now home from the hospital. Hayden explained that his ring finger is permanently damaged, having been broken with a torn tendon. He will need surgery.

“My nail was completely ripped off and, yeah, a finger was completely chewed,” he said.

Brandon’s nose and orbital are broken, and he said he’ll now need facial reconstructive surgery. His right orbital area is swollen and a deep purple, and his sclera is a deep red.

Both men are not able to work right now, and Amanda said their number one priority is recovery, in addition to justice.

The family said they’ll continue to go to Country Fan Fest in the future, but will be more vigilant about their surroundings.

Knowing they will likely shoulder the medical bills while having to navigate time off from work, a family friend set up a *GoFundMe to help.

Brandon called the whole situation “insane.”

“I don’t even know how to contemplate somebody doing that … No words,” he said.

The family is shocked, confused and cannot understand why this happened.

“[Hayden] likely may have loss of use in that finger, and all at the hands of, for what? We don’t even know,” Amanda expressed.

All they can make sense of, is what Brandon did in those moments to save Hayden.

“This was a dad protecting his son in a freak situation,” Amanda said.

“If he didn’t, I probably wouldn’t be able to talk or anything,” Hayden said, of how much worse his injuries would be if Brandon didn’t intervene. “I am so thankful for this man.”

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