Eleven years ago, DeHerrera was hit by a truck while sitting on a bus bench.

"Somehow I survived. I flew up in the air and I came down and everything changed after that," he said. "Everything started going downhill. I couldn't work anymore. So I tried to figure out what I could do and one day I decided to do this."

He went from rock bottom to using rocks to build something beautiful.

He glues them together around recycled products like plastic milk bottles, fruit cups and wood.

"People call me an artist now. I never really considered myself an artist, but maybe now I am. I don't know," he said.

His creations have water flowing through them: rocks and recyclables turned into fountains.

He displays many of them at Happy Gardens Floral in Englewood.

"He's a good person and he's extremely excited about these fountains. So he's gotten everybody else excited about them," Bobbi McCandless with Happy Gardens Floral said.

DeHerrera is so excited he now teaches classes on how to make rock fountains.

"It's fun to find the rocks that have different character, different reflection on them," DeHerrera said. "Laying on the ground one minute, a piece of art the next minute."

Between teaching, building and selling his fountains, DeHerrera says he has found his niche.

His fountains are priced from a little to a lot. Some of the more extravagant ones sell for $1,000.

"I sold somebody a pile of rock for $1,000. So I feel pretty good," he said.