Man jumps from burning building

JACKSON, Mo. -- A man was injured early Saturday after he leaped from a second-story window to escape a burning building.

Chris Locklear, 38, of Jackson awoke to smoke and flames about 1:40 a.m. after a fire started in his kitchen.

He lived in one of two apartments on the second floor of a renovated house at 604 W. Main St. Downstairs is The Designing Team beauty shop, said Steve Baugh, public information officer for Jackson Fire Department.

Locklear grabbed his cell phone and called the fire department and his mother before jumping to safety, clad only in boxer shorts. His pet cat died in the blaze.

Firefighters who responded to the scene found Locklear sprawled on the ground. Another man was stranded on the porch roof.

"He's lucky to be alive," said his mother, Sue Truax. "He almost got too much smoke."

Locklear was on a ventilator Saturday, listed in stable condition at St. Francis Medical Center. He suffered smoke inhalation, severe burns on one hand and a fractured ankle. Truax said he's sedated so he doesn't fight the ventilation tube.

Both apartments were gutted by the flames, and the beauty shop downstairs was damaged by smoke and water.

Truax is worried about her son, who lost all his belongings in the fire. "We have to get him some help," she said.

An electrician, Locklear was on disability due to a clotting disorder and had been hospitalized several times since 1992 to have clots removed from his leg -- the same one with the fractured ankle -- and one clot removed from a lung.