Born and raised in Issaquah, Washington (30 minutes east of Seattle), Billy Price grew up very active in sports. Hiking and camping were staples. Mountain biking was a frequent treat. At eighteen, he left home and entered college. He was on top of the world, as the cliche goes. And then in a moment, his life changed forever.
On October 9, 1996, Billy fell from a three-story window, broke multiple vertebrae and damaged his spinal cord causing permanent paralysis. The medical diagnosis? Quadriplegia. And the world that Billy was accustomed to—a world filled with fierce independence—was gone. Instead, Billy spent the next five-months of his life at the University of Washington Medical Center piecing his life back together both physically and mentally. Forced to grapple with either success or sorrow, Billy opted to focus on the function he still had instead of letting the thought of what he had lost consume him. Inch by inch, day by day, he improved, not in the sense of reversing paralysis, but in the sense of building confidence and gaining strength in what he had.
Following his rehabilitation, Billy returned to college and finished his mechanical engineering degree. He relearned how to drive. He took the ski slopes back as a sit skier. He landed a job with the Federal Aviation Administration. He bought a condominium and started living on his own...until he met the love of his life and got married. And all that aside, somewhere along the way he connected with his longtime friend Darin Donaldson and started a shoe company that continues to grow and impact lives.
Life is a journey. Enjoy it! Embrace and receive what life has to offer. Find strength in the storms. Be a person of action. Build on what you have. Hold on to hope. Have courage. Move forward.
We all have a story. We cannot go back and rewrite how our story begins. But we can change how our story ends. It all comes down to choice And the choice to change can be made today. Giddy-up!
