Bruce Walsh - An inspiration to us all

Yesterday I was asked to MC one of the popular Dykes Van Heerden Slabbert events in Pinelands.

Bruce Walsh, a survivor from the Planet Hollywood bombing in the late 90's was the motivational speaker. Although I have heard him several times before, I cannot help but be touched by his courage and attitude and hope that I can display some of his fortitude and strength in adversity.

On August 25, 1998, Bruce Walsh’s world exploded. Literally…

Walsh was at a colleague's farewell function at Cape Town’s Planet Hollywood restaurant, and as luck would have it, they'd been placed at the table closest to the bar. Just after 7pm, he and two companions, Fanie Schoeman and Brian Duddy, placed a drinks order at the bar. Unwittingly, they'd placed themselves at the epicenter of a bomb that exploded moments later.

Fanie and Brian were killed and several others were injured. Bruce, who’d placed himself between the two, shattered an arm and lost both legs.

But Bruce refused to be a victim. Today he walks and even jogs with his prosthetic legs, and is in demand as an inspirational speaker. He’s also written an account of his life before and after the bomb.

He admits it was probably a sense of vanity, more than anything else, which drove his recovery. I didn’t want to be pushed around in a wheelchair and have people saying, oh shame, look at that man in the wheelchair. 

“We are the sum of our choices” He classified people into the category “winners” as those who set themselves goals and persevere. Winners are team players. Then there are those who choose to be classified as “losers. Who start but don’t finish, who promise but don’t deliver, who do not persevere and who are not good team players and do not set goals. When disaster strikes, winners pick themselves up and see the circumstances as a challenge. Losers, on the other hand, turn the experience into victimhood.

Bruce says he could easily have allowed the trauma to force him into victimhood. Ironically Bruce was a keen runner, having run the Comrades and Two Oceans race many times. He also played league squash.  He was there on company business and said he could still be blaming this employer and Planet Hollywood. If that was his choice, he would still be sitting in a wheelchair.

He says winners are team people. He relied on his family, his physiotherapist and a psychologist to help him deal with what happened.

“Most people are given one shot at this thing called life. I was given a second chance” says Bruce.  He asked: Are you a winner, or a loser, a whinger, a complainer? If you want to be a winner, you have to.

·         Acquire the skill of perseverance

·         Set goals

·         Be emotionally functional

·         Be emotionally consistent

·         You cannot be a winner unless you are intellectually challenging (looking for solutions not problems)

·         And he says you cannot be a winner if your relationship with your creator is not what it should be

If you believe in yourself, even when others doubt you, if you know where you’re going and you persevere, you can overcome anything.

Bruce -  you are a WINNER in my eyes