Fayetteville Man Overcomes Adversity With Determination

Every morning 43-year-old Dave Kozich is on the job as a cable tv construction supervisor.

"My reaction was wow," one co-worker said.

It is a reaction Kozich hears often, but insists that he is no different from the other guys.

"Just another ordinary guy doing any job," Kozich said.

Kozich's past is far from ordinary. He lost his arms and hands in a horrible electrical accident. After collecting disability for five years, he decided that he did not want to sit home.

Dave Kozich the second says he knew his father would not sit still for long.

"He is probably my number one hero, I mean I have never seen a guy who has never once pitied himself," Kozich's son said. "He'll get right down and do it himself, it is just the way he is the man can't sit down for a minute."

Kozich has learned to adapt so that his disability is no longer a disability. From using the phone, to typing up his payroll report to loading cable, Kozich can do it all, alone.

His coworkers said that the adjustment was more difficult for them than it was for him.

"He's certainly proven that anything you want to do, you can do," co-worker Derek Johnson said. "Whatever your limitations are."

"Half the time, I don't even think of the fact that I have no arms and hands, I just do it," Kozich said.

He works for his own reasons, and to show other people with disabilities that anything is possible.

Kozich does have prosthetic arms, but said they hold him back. He says he only uses them when he has to comb his hair.