By Camas Frank

Achilles Prosthetics and Orthotics has a long history on the Central Coast of making life easier for people who’ve suffered an amputation.

When they started, 38 year ago, there were no other local practitioners. While that’s no longer the case, demand for their services has grown over a generation, leading to expansion beyond their Bakersfield and Santa Maria offices into SLO, six years ago, and recently an office in Templeton.

“In the scheme of things it’s not too far to travel from SLO to Santa Maria in the medical field but we kept hearing from physicians we work with that, ‘we really need you guys here,’” explained Donald Newton regional manager, “Now we’ve opened up over the grade as well.”

The man most patients will see if they come in for an appointment in either of those locations, Zak Malzhan, certified prosthetist for Achilles, splitting his work week between Templeton and SLO, he’s what his company biography would call a life long “leg man, arm man, foot man and a hand man.”

Malzhan’s career began 20 years ago. As a teen, he walked into the doors of Achilles’ Santa Maria location in search of a part-time job. Newton started working with the young man guiding him in fabrication and, “the finer arts of prosthetics development and repair.”

The kid had some personal reasons for wanting to go into that line of work.

“My dad’s an amputee so I’ve been around the field my whole life,” he said. “When I was looking at careers at Hancock College, I realized this was something I already knew, that I already understood.”

He continued, “A lot of people think their life is over when they have an amputation, so getting them to realize you can do just about anything you want, even things you never did before, with a prosthetic is really rewarding.”

Bill Malzhan, Zak’s father, lost his own leg at the age of 19. The boy grew up never knowing how his father had lived before the accident and never knew people would consider the loss of a limb as a limitation. In family it was a normal state of being and their circle included friends with various disabilities.

“He’s been around a lot of people with disabilities that function at a really high level,” Bill told the folks at Achilles. “No one sits around and whines about anything. He’s been raised around people with a little more challenge, that’s all.”

Zak began tinkering with Bill’s prosthetic at an early age.

“He was always interested in [futzing] around with my leg. When he was a little kid, he’d ask how it worked,” said Bill, now one of his son’s clients.

When Bill didn’t have answers, Zak asked if he could disassemble the leg.

“We made a deal: you can take it apart, but you have to be able to put it back together,” Bill recalled.

“My dad was able to do anything he wanted. He’d Boogie board with us, played basketball with us, worked as a pipe welder in the oil fields for 40 years. A lot of it is your frame of mind and what you want. It’s whether you have a good, positive attitude and go for it. If you want to sit around and feel sorry yourself, it’s not going to have a good outcome,” Zak said.

As Newton explained, much of the company’s work is in working with patients to design a basic limb that will handle daily life.

“We won’t design a sprinter’s leg for someone who just needs to get around, but every patient, every limb is unique, we work on every stage from pre-operative counseling to the fine tune over months,” he said.

For more information about what they do and some of the amazing technology being employed in the field visit: achillespo.com/about-us.

Editors note: Quotes from Bill and Zak Malzhan were excerpted from a previous interview supplied by Achilles Prosthetics & Orthotics.