Working Man

Local man doesn’t allow paralysis to hold him back

Tom Jandora celebrating 45 years at R.J. Glass Inc.

By Amanda Gabeletto, Altoona Mirror

Duncansville — Tom Jandora has worked for the Duncansville-based trucking company R.J. Glass Inc. for 45 years.

That in itself is an accomplishment, but even more so considering Jandora, a dispatcher and manager, has done so as a paraplegic. But he was influenced to pick doing over feeling sorry for himself at a young age.

When Jandora, 64, was about to turn 10 years old in February 1960, he was stricken with polio, which according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a crippling and potentially fatal infectious disease that can invade the brain and spinal cord and cause paralysis.

“Every time I laid down at night, I felt like I had a knife sticking in my chest,” he said on a recent snowy afternoon in his Duncansville home, once his family homestead, with his wife, Mary, sitting beside him.

“During the day I could sleep a little bit, so every night I tried to go to bed. For a whole week, I did that. It was getting close to Valentine’s Day ... I got valentines all ready for school. Sunday night, I went to bed. I slept all night. Monday morning, I woke up and ... I made about four steps, my legs just went out. That was it.”

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