Kent Swapp is known for being an excellent engine builder and a big fan of old trucks. Over the past four decades, he’s rebuilt hundreds of Cummins engines and owned and operated many cool classic trucks, but that is not why he is known as a “Miracle Man” to many – especially those in his local medical community. Kent (63) nearly died from covid back in 2021 and has quite an interesting – dare I say “eye opening” – story to tell about it. And this “Miracle Man” has done more than just survived after God hit the reset button on his life… he has thrived.
But this story is not just about Kent and his struggle with covid. He is a fifth generation freight hauler, starting with his great great grandfather Melvin Swapp, who “drove” a team of mules pulling wagons. Living in Luna, NM in the late 1800s, Melvin hauled mail and other general freight between Luna, Alpine, AZ, and Magdelena, NM. This was his regular route, and even though it was only a couple hundred miles, it took him about three weeks to complete the trip. His great grandfather Mel was a cattle rancher in Luna, who probably did a little cow hauling along the way, as well.
The next in line was Kent’s grandfather, Don Swapp, who hauled logs and lumber in and around Luna, NM. Kent’s father Horace Swapp was born in 1939, and in the mid-50s he began driving a log truck at 17 years old for Whiting Brothers. A few years later, Kent’s grandfather, father, and uncle (Melburn) all began working together at Southwest Forest Industries, hauling lumber between Reserve, NM and Eagar, AZ, doing three rounds a day. At that time, they were the only three lumber trucks in the area. Kent’s dad and uncle both eventually quit working for Southwest in the mid-1970s and became owner operators, leasing on with Roadrunner Trucking, which was based in Albuquerque, NM.
When Kent’s dad first started trucking, they called him “Trader” on the CB, because of his “Swapp” last name. Later, one of Kent’s kids began calling him “Pop Swapp” and that became his new nickname – and it stuck. Kent’s father retired in 2015 and just passed away last year at 84 years old. His mother Royene is still alive and lives at home. Kent has two brothers that live near her that stop by every day to take care of her and make sure that she has everything she needs. Later, Kent named one of his sons Trader, in honor of his father.
Born in 1961, Kent grew up in the tiny town of Eagar, AZ. After graduating high school in 1980, he went off to UTI in Phoenix to study diesel mechanics and graduated the following year. Then, from 1981 to 1994, he worked at Industrial Fleet Repair, where his specialty was rebuilding Cummins diesel engines. Over his tenure there, he rebuilt hundreds of these engines. In 1994, needing a change, he went to Chandler Ready Mix, where he worked as a mechanic for two years. When Industrial Fleet Repair made him an offer he couldn’t refuse, he went back there for two more years, before opening his own shop – Kent’s Diesel Works in Mesa, AZ – in 1997. Today, he still owns and operates that business.
How he came to open his own shop is an interesting story. One of his longtime customers, Jerry Lilly of Trio Forest Products, decided it was time for Kent to have his own place. So, on his own, he found a space and rented it for Kent, just to get him started. Kent left his job on a Friday, moved into the new shop on Saturday, and then opened up for business on Monday morning. By Monday afternoon he was doing his first overhaul and hasn’t stopped since. It was just Kent and one mechanic for a few years, then he grew to five, until 2021, when everything changed.
In June of 2021, after visiting a friend at a nearby rehabilitation center, Kent and his wife Jonetta got sick, and a few days later, after taking a test, Jonetta confirmed that she had covid. About ten days later, Jonetta had so much trouble breathing, Kent took her to the hospital, and they admitted her. He went home that night, and then started feeling worse, too. Around 2:30 AM, his breathing had become so difficult, not wanting to wake up anyone in the house, he decided to drive himself to the hospital. He doesn’t remember much of the 30-mile drive, but he does remember parking his pickup truck and going inside once he got there. That’s about the last thing he really remembers. His wife ended up being in the hospital for seven days, but then she got better and went home. Kent, on the other hand, spent the next four months there, fighting for his life.
As his condition worsened, they eventually put him in a medically induced coma, and then put him on a ventilator. In a more lucid moment before being put in the coma, he wrote a list of things for his family to sell – he thought he was going to die, and didn’t want to burden them with a bunch of stuff to deal with. Many of his old trucks, ongoing projects, and “toys” were sold during that time. He barely remembers even making this list! The plan was to have him on the ventilator for two weeks, stop all his medications, and then wake him up. Then, if he was strong enough, take him off the ventilator. Well, things didn’t quite go that smoothly.
After two weeks, they stopped giving him all his medications, but he didn’t wake up. Another week passed, and he was still not awake. At this point, the doctors began advising Jonetta to go home, talk to family, and then say their goodbyes before “pulling the plug” on Kent’s ventilator, which was keeping him alive. She was told that Kent’s kidneys were failing, his heart was no good, he was brain dead, and even if he did somehow survive all this, he would never be the same and probably need to live in an acute care facility (at $30,000 a month). Needless to say, she was freaking out and very scared.
Before she left that day, out of just pure frustration, she jumped on Kent’s chest as he lay in his hospital bed, forced open his eyes with her fingers, and hollered, “Kent Swapp, I need you to wake up! I do not want to make this call. I need your help!!” The next morning, when she walked into his room, his eyes were open, and he was awake. He was still on the ventilator, and basically paralyzed, so he couldn’t talk or move, but he was back. However, he was still not able to breath on his own, and the doctors were not being optimistic about his prognosis. But the nurses were great.
Taking advice from a nurse, Jonetta had the ventilator removed and then had them do a tracheotomy on Kent (they put a surgical hole in his windpipe to help him breathe). One of the doctors was very upset with Jonetta, saying it was a waste of time and money, and she should have just let him die. But guess what, he began to improve. He eventually got moved up to the covid recovery floor at the hospital, where his tenacity and Jonetta’s perseverance began to pay off. He was still in and out of consciousness but started to get better. It was at this point when many of the nurses, and even some of doctors that had written him off, began calling him their “Miracle Man” on the fourth floor.
Here is where the story gets weird – or cool – depending on how you look at it. Kent was obviously heavily sedated the entire time he was in the coma, but he does have some memories. He vividly remembers being in a dark hallway with a “T” at the end. At that end, he could go one way towards death, or the other way towards life, and he remembers being given that choice, but not knowing what to do. Well, when Jonetta jumped on his chest and forced his eyes open, even though he was still fully in that coma, he actually saw her! And after seeing his wife, he chose life, and then woke up.
Eventually, they moved him to a specialized rehabilitation center, and they worked very hard to get him to a point where he could go home. And after four months from the day he walked himself into that hospital, that is what he did – he finally went home. Once home, he began taking walks around their neighborhood. Starting out with the help of a walker, he was eventually able to ditch that for a cane, and then later get rid of that, too, as his morning walks grew to be three miles long every day. Six months after he got sick, just after Christmas 2021, he went back to work. Going slow at first, over time he was able to get back to normal – or should we say, his new normal, which was not normal, at all.
While he was sick, Kent’s wife and kids, along with his customers, and even some of his competitors, came in to help and to keep the business going – and thriving. When he came back, much had changed, but he was very thankful to have something to go back to. I’m not sure what your beliefs are, but I do know that Kent has a strong faith, and this event caused him to rethink everything in his life and reset all his priorities. Today, he is basically fully recovered, with no long-lasting effects or ongoing medications, but he will probably never be 100 percent. He is an entirely different person with a completely different mindset – one of gratitude, appreciation, and most importantly, compassion for his fellow man.
All the time when he was a mechanic, Kent also had trucks and did some trucking on the side. Over the years, he has had plenty of (mostly) older trucks – so much so, he created a DBA for his business called “Old Iron Rescue” due to all the old trucks he dragged into his shop. One of those is the 1957 Kenworth 925 seen here. Kent got this truck about 20 years ago, and at the time, it had a short wheelbase, no sleeper, and a bunch of mis-matched parts from other brands of trucks. Wanting it to be as period correct as possible, Kent spent a lot of time replacing those parts with original Kenworth parts and accessories (like the step boxes, fuel tanks, straps and breathers). It also had a tired 335 Cummins in it, but Kent left that alone, at first, even though it burned a lot of oil.
Working the truck part time, along with his boys, about 15 years ago, he landed a sweet gig hauling concrete road barriers, and to this day, he still does that. A few years after getting the KW, the truck was involved in an accident, and the front got wrecked. At this time, during the rebuild, Kent decided to do a bunch of stuff to the truck including stretching the wheelbase to 273 inches, adding a 36” sleeper, rebuilding the butterfly hood, dropping a 475 Cummins Big Cam 2 in it, and painting the entire truck Lexus black with dark metallic magenta fenders and chassis. The truck also has a 13-speed transmission and Peterbilt 4-bag air-ride.
This cool Kenworth, with an all-aluminum cab and hood, has been fitted with 6” Dynaflex stacks, a Whit Log headache rack, stainless-steel Hogebuilt full fenders on custom brackets, a diamond plate deck plate with built in electrical and air connections, and polished stainless-steel boxes on each side, with custom heavy duty brackets made by Kent himself. The visor is original, as are the headlights and brackets, which were re-chromed, along with the cab lights, horns, and spotlights. Kent added a chrome swan to the hood, three grill bars, and newer KW breathers (which needed to be upgraded when he did the engine swap). He has a sister truck to this one – a 1958 Kenworth that was owned by his father – that he is building to eventually be a match to this one, so whenever he buys something for the ‘57, he buys another one for the ‘58, as well.
In 2011, in preparation for the big national ATHS antique show and convention, being held that year in South Bend, IN, Kent had the entire interior of the cab and sleeper redone by a local guy named Carlos Ruelas. Using pleated black leather with purple thread, Carlos also stitched purple KW logos on each cab door, on each sleeper door, and a big one on the back wall of the sleeper. The interior also features a wood steering wheel, its original steering column, a mostly stock dash with upgraded and polished gauges, and a simple black rubber floor (Kent wanted it to be practical and easy to clean). But this trip to Indiana did not go as planned.
Stopping in Joplin, MO along the way to have the wheels on his truck polished for the show, Kent and his son Trader, who was just a little kid at the time, were in Joplin when it was hit by an EF5 tornado that devastated the city with a trail of destruction that went 21 miles long and up to one mile wide. Kent said the wind was blowing so hard that the rain was coming in every nook and cranny of the truck and the water was running out the bottom of the doors. Needless to say, the truck’s wheels did not get polished. In fact, they couldn’t even get out of town for three days. They did finally make it to the ATHS show in South Bend, IN, but little Trader told his dad that he would never go to Missouri again!
Meeting his wife Jonetta at a church dance, the two dated off and on for about seven years before getting married in January 1989. Almost 36 years later, the couple has four kids – three sons, Tyler (34), Jordan (32), and Trader (22), and a daughter named Payton (20). All of the boys grew up in the truck shop, and Tyler has done some trucking with his dad, as well. Kent also has three grandkids from Tyler – two girls and a boy. Kent doesn’t have time for too many hobbies, but he does like to get out for a little “wind therapy” every Saturday on his 2021 Indian motorcycle, and he does have a large collection of restored Schwinn bicycles. With about 46 of them hanging from the rafters in his garage, the oldest one is from 1932, but most are from the 1960s and 1970s.
Having lived in Gilbert, AZ since 2000, when they moved there it was all citrus groves. Now, it’s hundreds of thousands of homes! Being Mormons, they have been at their congregation longer than anyone else in their ward, and their church family really stepped up when Kent was sick, bringing the family dinner every night for many months. Along with strengthening his faith, Kent’s fight with covid also completely changed his likes and dislikes when it comes to food (he lost his sense of taste for over a year). These days, he loves spicy food, which used to give him heartburn but doesn’t anymore, and now rarely eats breakfast, which used to be his favorite meal of the day. He lost 115 pounds when he was sick and has since put about 55 of them back on, but feels good at his current weight.
Before being sick, Kent trucked a lot more than he does now – but he still enjoys it. Kent’s everyday driver is a really nice 1989 Kenworth W900B with a 302” wheelbase and a Big Cam Cummins engine, of course. Typically, his KW can be seen hooked to a polished out 2007 Wilson aluminum spread-axle flatbed. And when I say “KW” I mean any one of his four trucks, as they are all Kenworths (the 1957 featured here, the 1958 that was owned by his dad, a 1968 model, and the 1989 W900B). These days, after a full day of working in the shop, Kent still goes out trucking two or three nights a week.
After the photo shoot, which happened last summer, on a 106-degree day in the beautiful Superstition Mountains just east of Phoenix, we headed further east, on the Apache Trail (State Highway 88) to the oldest operating stagecoach town in Arizona for some lunch with our friend Ron Kelsey, who was with us at the photo shoot. Kent headed home, but we were hungry, and Ron said this place and the drive to get there was pretty cool, so we did it. The twisted road through the Sonoran desert to get there is rated as one of the “Top 10 Motorcycle Rides” in the United States, and it did not disappoint. And once we got there, we had a great lunch at the world renowned Superstition Saloon and Restaurant in Tortilla Flat, which was established in 1904, and still has a total population of just six people! It was a neat way to end a great day.
When asked who he might like to thank, Kent wanted to thank his dad for teaching him how to work and giving him his love for trucks. He also wanted to thank his wife and family for all their love and support, along with Jerry Lilly, for helping him get started on his own. Kent has been blessed to be surrounded by good people his entire life, and he is truly appreciative of that. If you are questioning your faith or your beliefs, I recommend you consider this “Miracle Man” and his story, because God has a plan for each of us, and sometimes he just needs to hit the reset button on our lives so we can start seeing that plan clearly again!
