PHOENIX -- A Valley man said he got an unexpected lift from a stranger, right when he needed it the most.

Steve Merkel was in a rough spot.

"I had cancer," he said. "I've got diabetes. I have dialysis three days a week 'cause my kidneys are shot. I guess I've had more … but that's plenty to list!"

Nevertheless, Merkel tries to keep his attitude upbeat.

"You have to go on … if you give up, you're done," he said. "You just have to keep going."

Until recently, "going" anywhere was a problem -- he's missing part of his body. Both of his legs were amputated in the fall of 2008.

"I still can't walk," he said. "But I'm working on that part."

Merkel was bedridden for nearly a year -- an isolated, shut-in existence for the talkative retired mail courier from Minnesota.

When he wanted to get out of the house, his wife, Wendy, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, had difficulties putting his wheelchair in the back of the car.

The couple put an ad on craigslist, looking for a van with a wheelchair lift.

"We thought maybe we could get something reasonable that maybe we could make payments on," Merkel said.

Nancy Skoglund had just the thing.

Her late husband used the lift until his death last year -- about the same time Merkel lost his legs.

Skoglund's son turned to the Internet to sell the van, and he found the Merkels' advertisement.

The Merkels were elated.

"Wendy asked how much she wanted for it … and Nancy said, 'If you can use it, it's yours,'" Merkel said. "These things happen to other people; they don't happen to me."

So Merkel asked CBS 5 News to pay it forward to Skoglund.

After more than a month of calls and e-mails from opposite ends of the Valley, the three met face-to-face for the first time so Merkel could give Skoglund the $500 prize money.

"I can do things … that I wasn't able to do," Merkel said. "(The lift) puts me out with people again."

Skoglund also paid for a specialist to drive across the Valley to Apache Junction to install the lift in the Merkels' van.

"I think it was absolutely fate," Skoglund said. "It could have been (my husband) looking down … who knows."