PORT ANGELES — When life pushed at Bill Price, he decided to push back.
An accident 13 years ago left his son, Billy, paralyzed from the chest down.
Devastated by his son’s third-story fall from a college fraternity window, Price the elder refused to “throw the towel in.”
He dedicated himself to finding a boat that he could readily enjoy with his son.
“This is for my son, but it’s also for me to fight back,” Price said. “There’s a way to push back.”
Armstrong Marine turned the Issaquah man’s dream into reality.
Joe Beck, an engineer and designer with Armstrong Marine, which is located between Port Angeles and Sequim at 151 Octane Lane, helped Price design a wheelchair-accessible 30-foot catamaran called the Apollo Axon.
An axon is a long nerve fiber in the spinal cord that conducts electrical impulses.
Pushing back
“This helps me push back,” Bill Price said, while preparing to launch his boat in Port Angeles on Thursday.
“There is life after injury for all parties.”
Now others, seeing the prototype, want one just like it.
After his work on the Apollo Axon, Beck was contacted at a boat show to make a similar boat for a wildlife biologist in Juneau, Alaska, who is paraplegic.
His next project is a catamaran for client involved with the CAST — Catch a Special Thrill — for Kids Foundation, a public charity that takes disabled and disadvantaged children fishing.
Beck believes there is an untapped market for wheelchair-accessible boats.
“I think it’s going to explode,” Beck said.
Mechanical engineer
An avid skier and all-around athlete in high school, Billy Price, 31, now is a C 5-6 quadriplegic. He has limited movement of his arms, but no triceps or finger function.
“You have to work with what you’ve got,” said the Seattle man, a mechanical engineer who works for the Federal Aviation Administration.
Billy Price broke his back and neck, injuring his spinal cord, in October 1996. He was a freshman at the University of Washington when he fell out of a third-story window at his Alpha Delta Phi fraternity and landed on his head.
He doesn’t remember the fall. He remembers going to bed at 1:30 a.m. and waking up outside the house at 3:30 a.m.
He had been drinking at a party earlier that night, and said he may have been sleepwalking when the accident occurred.
Rather than succumbing to the injury, the younger Price went back to the University of Washington and graduated in 2002 with an engineering degree.
Time on the water
Recently, the Apollo Axon has enabled Billy Price to spend quality time with his family on the saltwater.
“My dad kept it somewhat of a secret from us, and all of a sudden it was like, ‘Here’s the boat,'” Billy recalled.
“It was a cool surprise for the whole family.”
Since the maiden voyage on Labor Day weekend in 2007, Billy Price has gone on about 10 trips with his parents and sister to the family’s cabin on Center Island in the San Juans.
The aluminum vessel is equipped with a pair of 225-horsepower diesel Volvo engines with dual-props on each side. It can cruise at more than 30 mph, although Bill Price would rather take his time.
Catamarans have two hulls, which make them stable in the water.
The entry gates on the Apollo Axon are wider than most boats. It comes with an extended swim step, which is level with the main deck for easy access.
A sliding cabin door leads to a large wheelhouse with extra heaters to accommodate Billy Price’s medical needs. His injured body does not regulate temperature well.
The bathroom is about twice the typical size.
Seats and windows inside the cabin are lower than on most boats.
Beck said the biggest challenge of designing the boat was making enough room in the cabin for the 60-inch circle needed for a wheelchair to maneuver.
“It worked out,” Beck said, smiling. “It’s fun stuff to do.”
Satisfaction
Beck, a former civil engineer in land development, said he derived a special satisfaction working on the project. The specialized boat was the “first project that landed on my desk” when he started at Armstrong Marine in 2005.
Bill Price said Beck and the crew at Armstrong Marine were able to visualize what he had in mind for his son.
“He’s been an absolute charger,” Price said of Beck.
The extra cost to make the Apollo Axon wheelchair-accessible was not a consideration for Bill Price.
“He knew what he wanted for his son,” Beck said.
Billy Price tells his story in a video on YouTube. To see it, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiQADSIINmM.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
