By Abbey Cannan
A Noosa musician who was left with a brain injury after a horrific accident has music to his ears again thanks to two local businesses.
In 2004, Grant Linkhorn was involved in a car accident where he was struck by a large truck.
In turn he lost a lot of physical function in the lower part of his body, and sustained an acquired brain injury.
While Grant has been affected by this incident, he is still a very intelligent and knowledgeable person and is still able to play many instruments with great effect.
Grant’s positive disposition towards life and passion for helping others, especially those with challenges themselves, whether they be physical or mental, has helped him and guided him to find his sense of self, and true purpose.
It hasn’t been an easy road, by any means; every day has its struggles, but music has been one of the pillars of his life and happiness.
In recent years, his hearing has sadly slowly degenerated, not only because of the accident, but his age and former professional occupation in music have had a noticeable effect on the decline of his hearing ability.
He said as music became less enjoyable, his life was feeling less fulfilled.
However, since meeting independent Audiologist Diedre from Noosa Hearing, and being fitted with Unitron hearing aids and Audeara headphones, Grant said he has once again found solace in music and is able to play all of his instruments.
“To work with music, I couldn’t do it without it,“ Grant said.
“For 12 years I’ve been almost bed ridden and now the world is opening up to me.“
He was always a very musical individual and heavily drawn towards all sorts of art forms.
Although his first passion was in percussion and drumming, he broadened his theatrical horizons by playing the guitar, saxophone, piano, ukelele, and pretty much any instrument he picks up, he warms up to and can get a tune going. Grant also did work as an audio engineer and sound recorder.
“This hearing aid looks smaller than the ear piece I would go on stage to sing with. When I first put it in, I was singing with it, and the tears were rolling down my eyes,“ he said.
“For the last 20 years I’ve hated the sound of my voice and I really didn’t know what I sounded like.
“They’ve only been in four days and even people that can hear normally put them on and they go, ’wow even I sound better with this’.“
Grant said he would like to give great acknowledgment to the optical department of Noosa Optical and Sound, as they’ve given him a literal new perspective on life.
“Be sure to get your hearing tested by the proper people and your eyes tested by the proper people,“ he said.
