Today we’d like to introduce you to Bruce Mezan
Hi Bruce, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I was raised in a very cautious family. After graduating from high school, I went off to UCSB and I was like a dog off his leash and became drawn to so many exciting things. One of those things was motorcycles. I had never ridden one before but after my freshman year, I took a motorcycle riding class and bought my first motorcycle. I fell in love with it. I loved taking long, solitary journeys with no plan or agenda. I continued to ride up until I was injured. I took riding very seriously. I always wore safety gear and trained by continuously taking advanced classes and clinics, including track riding. In January of 2020, I received certification by the CHP to teach motorcycle safety classes. This certification required hundreds of hours of work, including coursework, student teaching, and practicing.
A few weeks after getting my certification, I was riding my motorcycle on my way to teach my first motorcycle safety class at 6:30 on a Sunday morning. I stopped at a 4-way intersection in Encinitas, and a few seconds after leaving the limit line, I was T-boned by a drunk driver who ran through his stop sign at the intersection at 50 miles per hour. The motorcycle and I went airborne and flew 25 feet before landing on the sidewalk. As luck would have it, this occurred in front of an Encinitas Fire Department station. They were treating me within a minute after being struck. This saved my life.
The 25-year-old driver who struck me worked at a restaurant in Encinitas. After work the prior evening, he joined several of his coworkers at a party. His friends knew he was too drunk to drive and took his keys. They convinced him to stay the night. He slept on the sofa for a couple of hours then woke up and decided to leave while still impaired. After hitting me, the driver stopped his car partially on the sidewalk, left his vehicle, and ran. He decided to return shortly thereafter and was arrested for drunk driving. Ultimately, he was sentenced to 4 years and 4 months in state prison.
My injuries were severe. I spent two weeks on a respirator and in a coma, and had multiple internal injuries and subsequent infections. My entire ribcage was crushed and had multiple fractures to my pelvis and spine. The greatest tragedy for me though was the loss of my right leg below the knee. After two months in the hospital, I was discharged.
I knew right away that I wanted to utilize my story to help other people and began speaking on behalf of MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving). I’ve since given 75 speeches and been featured on the news numerous times. I wanted to exchange my pain for purpose. My life as I knew it had been devastated. Yet, at the same time, I was fixated on the fact that the drunk driver’s life and the life of his wife and children were also devastated. I decided I wanted to meet the young man who struck me. I felt that his story and the devastation to his life is perhaps as important as mine to share with my audiences because his story, not mine, is what happens to you if you drink and drive. I reached out to the Department of Corrections and learned about the VOD program (Victim Offender Dialogue). This program allows for a face-to-face meeting between the victim and offender with the intention to seek closure for both parties. The Department of Corrections assigned a facilitator who worked with me to make sure I was ready for such a meeting, get the necessary clearances and to obtain permission from the offender to participate.
After the processing was complete, we traveled to the prison where he was held. We checked in and were directed to a large room within their administration building. I had gone to use the rest room and when I returned, the driver and the facilitators were introducing themselves to each other. He turned and walked toward me, held out his hand and introduced himself. It was such a surreal moment because, during the criminal case, as soon as he pleaded “Not Guilty”, he became my nemesis. Though I understand the legal reasons for such a plea, as a victim, I found it wildly offensive. Because of this, I did everything I could throughout the criminal case to be sure that he received as harsh a sentence as possible. Yet here we were on the cusp of an incredibly emotional conversation about the worst event of both of our lives. Not to be cliché, but the humanity crept in. I realized that if you could strip away my anger, resentment and pain, and perhaps his anger, shame, and guilt, we are two humans who lives literally collided it the most devastating of ways. And though our lives are forever changed, I felt that we were interconnected. In light of this, it made no sense that we remain estranged. We sat down and fell right into conversation that lasted three hours about the crash, his time in prison, his drinking and his family. I made sure to share with him my struggles as well. I wanted to be sure he was aware of the difficulties I am faced with. During this visit, it became clear that he is a man who figurately dug a hole, fell into it and is trying to climb out and rebuild his life. He has since been released from prison. We have been in contact on two occasions and I have met his wife and children.
In some ways, this is complicated for me to think about. As a victim, it is much more comfortable to stay in a place of righteous indignation and package him up nice and neat as a monster or villain. But identity is so important. If society defines him as a monster and, in turn, if he defines himself as a monster, there is a greater chance he will act as one and repeat the offense. The recidivism rate amongst drunk drivers is alarmingly high. So regardless of how I feel about him personally, if my primary goal is for him not to hurt anyone else, then it makes sense for me to release him of his shame and let him identify as the good man that clearly dwells within him. I acknowledge that it’s really difficult to amend or expand our own story, particularly in the face of an injustice, to include the story of the ‘other’ (enemy, villain, etc.). But being curious about the other person gives us the room to expand beyond solely our own personal interests and start looking at how the positions we take ripple through the world. Our propensity or inclination is to stick with our identity as the wounded one, or the one who has been wronged, or the right one. Certainly I am within my rights to make this argument. But paradoxically, I can at the very same time, hold an identity as a caretaker of the world that wants him to behave safely and for his children and his family to be well.
We live in an increasingly divided and complicated world. We are bombarded with problems and experiences that make us struggle. We often deal with this by oversimplifying the complicated and landing on a binary-based position or decision versus weighing and valuing two opposing paradoxical forces at the same time to find interconnectedness. By approaching these problems with a paradoxical lens and becoming curious about the perspective of the opposing force, we give ourselves the opportunity to understand the bigger picture before we make a decision or take a position that can have powerful implications for ourselves, our families, our workplace and for humanity.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The road back to health was really difficult. I had to relearn to walk and was in immense pain for the first two years. And living with a prosthetic leg is challenging to say the least. Beyond the physical, I struggled with acceptance of this new seemingly limited version of my life. But after the first two years, I transitioned from rehabilitation to fitness and sports. I’ve since participated in the Challenged Athlete Foundation Triathlon and play on a para ice hockey team. I have surfed and skied and hope to further develop my abilities in these sports. Beyond this, my appreciation of life, my wife, family and friends have grown to a place far beyond where it would otherwise have been.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I speak regularly at schools, military bases, police organizations and to groups of DUI offenders. My intentions have always been to go beyond sharing the horrors of my story. I’ve learned so much from my journey and from exploring both sides of this tragedy. I am excited to share the lessons learned with a wider audience. Before being struck, public speaking was not within my ‘natural habitat’ and like most people, a stage was the last place in the world I would want to find myself. I am most proud of becoming a better man because of all I have been through. I have turned my pain into purpose.
What was your favorite childhood memory?
As a child, my family lived in Florida for a time. We lived on a canal and had a small boat with an outboard motor tied up in back. I loved to take the boat out after school into open waters and drive the boat as fast as it could go! That love of speed has never left me!
Contact Info:
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R65c8rsy1jQ
- Email: brucemezan@gmail.com
