Bruce claims to suffer from an extremely rare, and possibly purely psychological, form of retrograde amnesia.
After a few days in the hospital, a phone number was found hidden inside a Spanish phrase book in the bag he had been carrying.
Abramson went to the hospital and identified him as 'Doug Bruce', a prosperous Englishman who had formerly been a successful banker in Paris, and who was studying for a degree in photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
Various publications discussed the improbability of Bruce's story, which centers around being the only documented example of extended, full-blown amnesia in the world to date (aside from Benjaman Kyle).
[1][2] Bruce reveals in an interview that, before his own bout with amnesia, a close friend suffered from short-term amnesia after a sporting accident; this experience inspired the friend to change his life completely and move to Bali to become "a healer".