At 13, Freddie Almazan was shot in the head. Now the motivational speaker tries to help others get a second shot at life

Warning: This article discusses suicide.

SINGAPORE — Nov 11, 2006 should have been like any other day for 13-year-old Freddie Almazan.

All he remembers is that he was walking home from school that afternoon. Then he woke up in the hospital a few weeks later.

He had been shot in the back of his head on his walk home in California. Till today, he does not know who had shot him.

The incident, however, left him partially paralysed.

It also marked the start of what would be a decade-long battle with depression, before he eventually decided to turn his life around during his university years.

Today, Mr Almazan, a youth motivational speaker, speaks extensively about how one can find “beauty in the broken pieces”, and thus grow and bounce back from the challenges one faces in life.

Because he decided to share his story, his words also saved someone from suicide.

Mr Almazan was speaking to TODAY on the sidelines of the Rotary International Convention 2024, where the 31-year-old is a conference speaker.

Rotary is an international service organisation connecting more than 1.4 million volunteers from more than 46,000 Rotary clubs globally to tackle issues of concern.

The organisation meets at the annual Rotary International Convention, which is held in a different city each year.

This year’s convention was held in Singapore between May 25 and 29, and saw more than 14,000 Rotary members and participants from 151 countries and more gather at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre at Marina Bay Sands.

‘WAKING UP TO A NIGHTMARE’

Mr Almazan remembers little of what happened that afternoon in November 2006, apart from how much his life had changed as a result.

“I just remember walking home and then a few weeks later, I remember waking up to what I thought was like a nightmare,” he said.

He was surrounded by doctors at his bedside. They asked him several questions — including if he knew what the date was and if he could feel his arms.

“That was when they told me that I had been shot.”

The shotgun used in the attack had been loaded with several ball bearings. Some of these had hit the back of his head and neck, damaging his nerves and leaving him partially paralysed.

He underwent many surgeries and therapy sessions — including physical and speech therapy — to regain his mobility and ability to speak.

He was discharged from the hospital some time in January 2007, about two months after he was shot.

He was caring for his little brother one night when the realisation of his situation fully hit him.

“I thought the entire time that I was dreaming and that one day I would wake up.

“Being there with (my brother) made me realise that maybe this wasn’t a nightmare, because every single day, it was the same story and I wasn’t going back to the way things were. I realised that... this is my life now.”

When he eventually returned to high school later that year, things took a turn for the worst.

“I started comparing myself to other people, and I realised nobody looked like me. I had a balance issue, and I was paralysed in my face. I was very different.

"I became very depressed. I started self-harming and I was even suicidal.”

This marked the start of what would be a decade-long battle for Mr Almazan.

It was when he studied sociology at the University of California that he decided to turn his life around.

REBUILDING CONFIDENCE

During his university years, Mr Almazan had the opportunity to spend a semester studying in Brazil — a chance he jumped at because he believed the new environment would do him good.

Up till then, he had been very insecure throughout his schooling years because he feared that people would judge him based on the way he looked. He shied away from others and did not have many friends.

“I thought if I went to a new country where everything was completely different and nobody knew anything about me, my life would change. 

“But I got to Brazil and I realised my life was the same.”

The realisation that nothing had changed prompted Mr Almazan to ask himself if he wanted to continue living his life the same way — or if he would try to move forward with his life.

He started making little changes to how he lived his life.

One of his biggest fears was to talk to people, afraid that they would judge and reject him.

Thus, a first step out of his comfort zone involved taking a risk to put himself out there and start talking to more people, Mr Almazan said.

“Doing that and realising that nobody really cared about the way I looked gave me confidence to try more, and more, and more.

“I started talking to more people, I started going out and I started doing things.

“It wasn’t a shift overnight. It was just little things that I was doing over and over again, and I was slowly building my confidence.”

‘YOU SAVED MY DAUGHTER’

After his time in Brazil, which he described as an “emotional experience”, Mr Almazan knew that he wanted to share about this and to help others as well.

Rolling up his shirt sleeve during the sit-down interview, he revealed a tattoo on his left arm that reads: “The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”

Mr Almazan recalled how — when he was applying to university — he had chanced upon clips of motivational speaker Nick Vujicic sharing his story online.

“I remember thinking that I was going to do that one day, that I wanted to be like him one day,” Mr Almazan said, though he did not act on it at the time.

One day, after he had graduated from university, Mr Almazan was speaking with a friend when he began sharing his story in detail with her for the first time.

She got visibly emotional and asked if he would consider becoming a motivational speaker.

Mr Almazan began to seriously explore how he could do so, and eventually signed up for a mentorship programme that would guide him on his motivational speaking journey. 

Months after embarking on the programme, he had a memorable encounter.

“I was talking to this woman in my community. I shared with her my story and then she started crying, (saying) ‘Oh my god, you saved my daughter’,” Mr Almazan said. The woman’s daughter was also battling depression at the time.

CELEBRATING SCARS

On what he hopes others would also take away from his sharings, Mr Almazan said: “We can’t always control everything that happens in life — people go through things, and life happens. But these challenges don’t have to define who we are.”

Referring to the Japanese practice of kintsugi — the act of repairing broken pottery by mending them with gold — from which he draws inspiration, Mr Almazan noted how people often try to replace broken things with something new.

“But what kintsugi does is that it repairs that damage… and where it’s fractured, they cover it with gold, so it highlights the scars.

“Kintsugi teaches us that our scars shouldn’t be something that we should be ashamed about. It’s something that we should be proud of, something that we should embrace, something to be celebrated.”

He said that embracing this has helped him to realise that the challenges he faced were also what developed his character and made him who he is today.

“(These challenges) gave my life a story. And because I have that story, my life is different, I am different, and I am more valuable because of that story.”

WHERE YOU MAY SEEK HELP 

• Samaritans of Singapore: 1-767 (24-hour hotline) or 9151 1767 (24-hour CareText via WhatsApp)
• Singapore Association of Mental Health: 1800 283 7019
• Emergency helpline of the Institute of Mental Health: 6389 2222 (24-hour hotline)