- Even if your body can't take it, your mind still wants to.
The first thing you think is like well am I gonna die here?
(somber music)
He ran into my lane, hit my car.
The impact was so fast.
I hit the dividers and my car just hopped up.
I remember my car just flipping, over, and over, and over.
And each time it flipped, it would just land on my side.
I don't know how, I just had like this crazy amount
of adrenaline, this crazy amount of strength, that I was
able to pull off my seatbelt, and by using the momentum
of the car, since I had a sun roof, I kind of just
threw myself out, because, noticed that there was
a tree, and it was going towards that.
I went through the glass, and I split from my groin
to my stomach, and I just kind of passed out.
I ended up waking up on the floor.
I was face down, and then I saw my car folded in half,
in the tree.
I tried getting up, because I thought I was okay.
You know you have one leg facing another one,
another one facing you.
I couldn't walk.
I army crawled to a point where I fell into a ditch.
Blood everywhere, coughing up blood.
At that point I knew I was gonna die.
Everything slows down, and your breathing slows down.
All you hear is your heartbeat.
I guess you could say I had a moment where you kinda
just talk to God, and I said if you can allow me to
see my mom one more time, and tell her that I love her,
and that I'm sorry, then you can take me.
They were able to put me in the ambulance,
and then took me to UCI.
But during that, I flatlined.
Your vision just kind of zooms in, everything goes dark,
and then when they bring you back to life it's
like this rush of energy.
Had a broken pelvis, broken legs, shattered ribs,
internal bleeding.
I lost my spleen due to infection, my lungs collapsed,
my heart moved to the middle of my chest,
collarbone's broken.
(somber music)
I flatlined, another two times.
Came to a point where they had to change my name,
because I passed away for a good 20 minutes or so,
but I don't know, for some reason I'm still here.
I still got a lot of things to do.
You pretty much don't know yourself 'til you
go through a struggle.
Doctors told me that I was gonna walk in five years.
They told me that I couldn't do any sports.
Don't ever think about doing anything like that,
because if I had one more blowout, then I would be
in a wheelchair forever.
I did go into depression for a little bit.
I didn't want to do anything.
I felt so isolated, I don't want to see anybody.
I felt like everything was over for me.
I had to do something.
Hell what the doctors say, I didn't want to be
in a wheelchair forever.
I didn't want to be that guy who just threw his
life away and didn't do anything about it.
I got a membership at 24, Monterey Park,
and there was this guy named Auchita.
He worked at 24.
I approached him and I was like, hey man, what do you
have tips for this?
And then he asked me, what is it that you want to do?
My answer was, I want to be different.
I want to be that game changer.
I want to do bodybuilding shows.
He actually believed in me.
When I would tell people I was like oh yeah,
I want to do bodybuilding.
They would just laugh at me.
They said I was fooling myself, that I was gonna get hurt.
Thanks to him, I'm doing what I'm doing now.
(light music)
I was at 175, three percent body fat.
Out of nowhere Joey goes, "Bryan, don't leave yet.
"Stay on stage."
I pretty much told my story.
It was the first time I felt accepted, because people
actually acknowledged my hard work.
It wasn't so much the way I looked, or the way
I ended up, or was, they admire the physique that I
brought to the game, and having people tell me,
oh man you're an inspiration, oh hey man,
you're a motivation, I want to be like you or
I want to have your body and stuff like that.
You know it kind of just leaves you speechless.
You come from where they give you no hope,
and they give you no faith.
They said oh well you're never gonna do this,
you're never gonna do that.
And then to come up and do something where you never
thought you could do or have the guts to do it,
a lot of people limit themselves.
They don't wanna do anything 'cause, oh man it's too hard.
Well life is hard, nothing comes easy.
If there's a will, there's a way.
There's always a way.
You just got to work for it.
You don't know what you're capable of doing until
you try it.
It's like your life can go in and out like this.
There's so much stuff out there, so much stuff
that you haven't experienced.
If you limit yourself, you're never gonna experience that.
You have to enjoy life like you're gonna die today,
and not live tomorrow.
And if you don't do that then you're not living.
(light music)