A truck driver, who thought he had lost it all, is now getting a second chance.
David Acosta had been driving big rigs for 13 years, but he lost his job and his rig and he was about to lose his home. But thanks to a contest, he's on the road again.
Even before his daughter's health began to fail, and before he lost the semi that he was leasing to own, complaining was not his way.
"I'm not the type to just lay back and expect somebody else to take care of me," he said. "I got responsibilities."
Acosta said what little money he had went to pay for his daughter's medical bills. She has been suffering from kidney disease.
"My circumstances were real bad," he said. "We were eating eggs and white rice."
Acosta's fate changed when his wife entered him in a contest sponsored by Arrow Truck Sales, a nationwide company with a truck store in Kansas City. He remembered his wife's words.
"Tomorrow, I'll get up and I'll pray about it and see what the Lord puts in my heart, then I put my heart into it," he said. "And apparently she did, and God did something. And long story short, there it is."
Acosta won that big rig from the essay his wife submitted. He got his own 2007 Volvo 780. And to keep him in shape while on the job, he also won fitness equipment from Trucker Trainer.
"They really are our road athletes," said Bob Perry of Trucker Trainer. "Everything we have, a truck brings it to us. That's a job we are not going to farm out overseas."
Acosta also received insurance for the truck and a job for one year moving products for Heartland Express. His wife entered the contest a week before the deadline. He said it's never too late to be blessed.
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