Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 27, 1993 TAG: 9303270022
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MICHAEL STOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
He takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'. Three lickins' in fact - big ones.
In 1979, when Linkous was 13, he fell in front of a neighbor's hay combine and suffered severe damage to his limbs. His left arm was severed three inches below the shoulder and his right arm was left hanging by the skin at his elbow.
His right leg had to be amputated just below the knee after infection set in.
Doctors in Charlottesville reattached his arms, but said regaining 50 percent use of them would be a realistic goal.
Linkous persevered.
After several operations and much physical therapy, he has regained 40 percent use of his right arm and 70 percent use of his left.
In 1987, a flue-fire destroyed Linkous' trailer in Elliston, leaving him and his family homeless.
With help from his family and friends, he overcame that obstacle and bought a new home.
This week, 27-year-old Linkous was walking into the laundry room of his home when its cinder-block wall caved in, bringing with it a huge mudslide and gallons of melted snow and rainwater.
Again, he finds himself staying with relatives. This time with a new wife, a newborn baby girl and his two daughters from the first marriage.
Linkous figures he's had enough bad luck to last him three lifetimes.
"I think his parents should have named him `bad luck,' " said his wife, Melissa.
Despite all that's happened, Linkous still has a positive outlook.
"I just take it in stride and keep going," he said. "If it had been just me I'd have given up a long time ago, but when you have three kids and a wife you can't do that."
Friday morning, Linkous walked around his Christiansburg home surveying the damage.
About six months ago Linkous and several of his buddies renovated the house's basement so that his family could live there until they decided where to build a new home.
Linkous rents the top floor to another family.
Brand-new carpet in all five rooms of the basement apartment was destroyed, sopping with water. Mud was nearly a half-inch thick on some of the floors.
Furniture in every room - all less than a year old - was cracked and warped from water damage.
"It's enough to make you sick," Melissa Linkous said.
Jonathan Linkous estimated there was $10,000 worth of damage. Insurance won't pay a dime because the accident was a natural disaster.
"No matter how bad his leg hurt, he wouldn't quit helping when they were renovating this place," Melissa said. "Now it's destroyed, just like everything else he ever worked hard for."
But Linkous doesn't want sympathy. He's bounced back before and knows he can do it again.
Linkous said his greatest triumph has been raising his daughters, not overcoming his accidents.
In 1990 Linkous was divorced from his first wife. He then won a lengthy custody battle for their two daughters - Tabitha, 7, and Jessica, 6.
"Surviving as a single parent was my biggest challenge," he said. "I can pretty much do anything I want with my two hands. It might take me longer and I might do it different than others, but I get it done."
Linkous and Melissa, 23, were married in September 1991. The couple had a baby girl, Stephanie, three months ago.
Linkous is unable to work, but supports his family with income from two rental houses he owns and from money he got in a lawsuit against the Shawsville farm where the combine accident happened.
It won't be easy, but Linkous said he'll find the money to rebuild his home.
"What I should do is buy a camper, live in that and just drive it around," he said with smile. "Maybe nothing bad would happen to it."
Melissa is confident her husband's string of bad luck is over.
"He's had more than his share," she said. "We just keep hoping something good will happen now."
by CNB