Heartwarming: Disabled Napa Veteran Wins Toyota Tundra

NAPA, CA — Napa resident Steven Hale had been driving the same 2004 Honda Civic around for years. The 36-year-old disabled U.S. Air Force veteran had been contemplating buying a new car but on his limited income, he wasn’t sure about taking on the debt of a car loan.

“I had been looking at cars for a couple of years and the Toyota Tundra was pretty much what I decided I wanted — I had just put off making the purchase,” said Hale, who enlisted in the Air Force in 1999 after graduating from Vintage High School.

As an aircraft mechanic, Hale was stationed in South Korea and did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He might still be serving today had a 100-pound generator not been dropped on him while he was on the job, injuring his shoulder; or had a drunk driver not hit him, breaking his neck and back.

The unfortunate series of events led to him being medically discharged in 2005. Now, he lives on a form of retirement pay from the military and because of his injuries, he can not do many types of work, he said.

That’s why when someone approached him to purchase a raffle ticket for a chance at winning a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck, he obliged. In addition to needing a new vehicle to shuttle his 77-year-old father and 70-year-old mother back and forth from their medical appointments, Hale learned the raffle was a fundraiser for the North Bay BMX track.

“I honestly didn’t think I was going to win a truck, but when I saw it was a fundraiser for the BMX track, I thought it was a really worthwhile cause,” Hale said. “I remember riding in the hills when I was kid.”

He purchased one $25 ticket, then went on with his life.

A few months had gone by when he got a nice surprise: he learned raffle sponsor Jimmy Vasser Toyota of Napa was now promoting a Toyota Tundra as the prize.

Then the day of the raffle, Saturday, Sept. 9, arrived. Hale said he knew he could not be there because of a family obligation, so he called ahead to make sure he did not need to be present to win.

That afternoon, he got the call — he’d won the truck, a 2017 Toyota Tundra 4x4.

“After I hung up the phone, I walked in the house and my mom thought something was wrong; she said I was pasty white and she told me to sit down,” Hale said. “She thought maybe one of my brothers had done something. But then my Dad and I went down to the dealership and saw that it was true. It was a pretty amazing day. For it to happen to me was pretty special.”

The timing could not have been better, he said, because his Civic had not been running too great. The new truck is easier for his parents — his father recently had a knee replacement and his mother’s vision is too poor to safely drive — to get in and out of, he said.

“Something that really surprised us is how comfortable of a ride the Tundra is,” Hale said, adding that it’s also handy for hauling feed for his animals.

It was a win-win for all, as the raffle raised $50,000 for North Bay BMX and left the folks at Vasser Toyota very pleased.

“Of all of the people who could have won, a disabled veteran actually did and as a Marine Corps veteran it’s especially heartwarming for me,” said Troy Pelzl, managing partner of Vasser Toyota.

Photo: (From left to right) Ray Gomez, representative from North Bay BMX; Steven Hale, retired Air Force veteran and winner of the truck; and Jimmy Vasser, owner of Jimmy Vasser Dealerships. (Courtesy photo)