I, for the most part, work strickly on gasoline equipment. I work in some locations that have 6 to 8 dispnsers, that pump 8 to 10 thousands gallons a day. Pretty busy, for the most part someone is pumping all the time. The panels are rarely marked, almost never marked correctly. Sometimes there is only one disconnect for several dispensers. I wouldn't have any business if I shut the place down to work. Simple as that. Their are rules and their are facts of life.
On another sad note
Ricky Thompson of Caribou gets his dressings changed on his burn wounds daily at Cary Medical Center in Caribou by Rhonda Bossie, R.N., who has special training in wound care.
Last updated: Saturday, February 14, 2004
Trial by Fire
Severely injured Caribou man trying to rebuild his life
Rick Thompson's scarred face cringed in pain and fear as he recounted details of the day when a fireball of 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit burned the clothes off his body and the skin off his muscles.
Walking to the table in his mother's small, second-floor apartment in Caribou, Thompson acknowledged a visitor and raised his arm slowly for a handshake, but asked that the squeeze of his hand be gentle.
The skin on his arms, hands, neck and face are pink, the color of new, tender flesh. His hands, covered with new skin, ache when he performs simple tasks. Getting into a car and driving is a huge undertaking as the chill of northern Maineýs weather exacerbates the pain.
Thompson, 48, faces months of daily, painful occupational and physical therapy and dressing changes at Cary Medical Center for injuries he suffered more than a year ago in an industrial accident at the Boralex Fort Fairfield Inc. electrical plant.
He learned recently that he might need more surgery soon to repair tendon damage in one hand. Thompson is getting stronger as each week goes by, he said, but his speech remains slow, the words easing out at their own pace.
Thompson was hospitalized for nearly 10 months for injuries that included second- and third-degree burns over more than 50 percent of his body after he was set on fire when a circuit breaker shorted out and blew at the Fort Fairfield biomass electrical plant Oct. 22, 2002.
When an 800-amp breaker went from 480 volts of electricity to about 32,000 volts, the explosion ignited his clothing and skin, according to a government report.
Thompson first was taken to The Aroostook Medical Center and then was quickly flown to Maine Medical Center in Portland. Three days later, he was at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital burn unit, considered one of the best in the world.
Kept in a medically induced coma for five weeks, the County man was still on a respirator when he woke up. He had nine skin-graft operations in Boston, and three more in Portland.
"I feel lucky to have survived the accident," Thompson said recently in the apartment he shares with his mother, Beatrice Maynard, in Caribou. "I came so close to death.
