WOODVILLE, Maine — A Medway business owner remained in critical condition at a Boston hospital on Wednesday after being badly burned in a gasoline explosion in his backyard last weekend.
Alan Cimon, 53, of Woodville has been sedated at Massachusetts General Hospital since being flown there by LifeFlight helicopter on Sunday night, said his girlfriend, Sue Stevens. Cimon suffered second- and third-degree burns and is likely to face a six-month recovery period, she said Wednesday. His sedation is likely to last into next week, although skin-graft surgery has occurred.
Family members, including several from Massachusetts, have gathered at the hospital, Stevens said during a telephone interview from Boston on Wednesday.
“People are doing as well as they can,” she said.
A Penobscot Regional Communications Center dispatcher said Sunday night that someone called 911 at about 7:05 p.m. to report a gasoline explosion that had burned a man’s upper torso at a residence on Energy Lane.
A supervisor with the East Millinocket firefighters who went to the residence declined to discuss the incident. The East Millinocket fire and police departments cover Woodville, a small northern Penobscot County town between Mattawamkeag and Medway.
Stevens, who lives with Cimon, said she wasn’t with him when the explosion occurred and isn’t sure what happened.
“The last I knew he was spraying [insecticide in] the yard. I didn’t even know he was starting the fire,” Stevens said.
The LifeFlight helicopter landed near Cimon’s home and flew him to Maine Medical Center in Portland, which has its own burn unit, before transferring him to the burn unit at Massachusetts General, Stevens said.
Hospital personnel have asked that Cimon’s visitors be restricted to immediate family — children and siblings — because of his delicate condition, Stevens said.
“Plenty of people have been asking, cousins and extended family and that sort of thing, but it’s too early for that,” Stevens said. “He has made such an impact on people. He’s a very well-liked person. He helps many other people out.”
Cimon, who owns Al’s Auto Repair on Medway Road, is known for doing what he can to help customers in the economically-challenged Katahdin region to afford his services. Friends established a gofundme.com page to help him pay for his medical expenses, which Stevens said are likely to be “astronomical.”
“I can’t even imagine how much it is going to cost,” Stevens said.
Stevens, the owner of Pickers Paradise, an antique and second-hand goods shop in Millinocket, said she will try to spend half weeks with Cimon when she isn’t managing her business. She herself isn’t sure how long she will be able to afford those expenses.
“It’s pretty overwhelming,” Stevens said. “It seems to be getting a little harder each day.”