YouTuber Brandon Buckingham Speaks Out After Being Hospitalized for Organ Failure: ‘I’m Really Afraid I’m Going to Die’ (Exclusive)

YouTuber Brandon Buckingham is speaking out just over a week after he was hospitalized for organ failure.

Speaking to PEOPLE from a hospital bed in the intensive care unit, the internet personality, 30, opened up about his sudden health scare, his current prognosis and the fear he feels about his recovery.

The influencer, known by a combined 2 million followers across Instagram and YouTube for his man-on-the-street-style–style interviews, woke up about over a week ago without any sense of hearing, his feet swollen and in intense pain. At the emergency room, he was told several of his organs were failing.

Buckingham tells PEOPLE he was diagnosed with sepsis from pneumonia, prompting kidney and liver failure, and a rare form of coxsackievirus, which triggered heart failure. As of Nov. 25, his heart’s ejection fraction is between 15 and 20%, considered very severe congestive heart failure.

“I’m really afraid I’m going to die,” he says. “I can’t get out of the ICU until my heart stabilizes, and my heart is not stabilizing.”

As he describes his family — he and his wife welcomed a daughter last year — Buckingham’s voice breaks.

“I’m afraid of what’s going to happen,” he says through tears. “I have an 11-month-old daughter. I just want to not be dead, you know what I mean?”

The content creator first shared on Nov. 21 that he had been hospitalized for several health issues, writing on X, "Things are not looking good my friends.”

“I don't know what's going to happen to me, but I know for sure if I do survive, it will be a very long recovery, and I will not be able to provide for my family for at least several months if things go well,” Buckingham wrote in a GoFundMe he opened to raise money for his family. “I will need help with things like my mortgage, utilities, baby supplies and the over 100k in medical bill debt i have racked up while dealing with this nightmare. I also will likely need to be on heart medication the rest of my life.”

The fundraiser has already far surpassed its initial goal of $75,000, collecting over $296,000 from more than 2,500 donors — including a $10,000 donation that appears to be from YouTuber MrBeast.

“Reaching this goal and then even more is very humbling,” Buckingham tells PEOPLE. “I feel very, very blessed and very, very lucky to be alive.”

Continues the creator: “If things were to be negative and end off negatively, what a blessing to see how much the world cares about me, you know? But God willing, that’s not going to happen.”