FARMINGTON — Call it a Christmas story or just a tale of a knight in shining armor but the demise of a local medical supply store has been granted a reprieve.

Farmington Medical Supplies and Services closed its doors Friday, an expected and previously-announced move initially fated for the end of this month.

The Wilton Road store reopened Monday morning as a western branch of Mac-Lin Medical Supply, Inc.

Owner Lance Macmaster came to the rescue after hearing news reports about the medical supply store closing. He purchased the business and added it to his three other stores, two in Bangor and one in Waterville.

“I’m just thankful. My wife, Crystal, and I don’t come in here everyday but when we do come in — you have it here,” said customer Reggie McBean of Wilton on Tuesday. “I believe in buying local. If you don’t, then everything is gone. This place has spoiled us. It’s helpful in an area that needs (a medical supply store) here.”

It means continued local access to medical supplies, store manager Brenda Laviolette said.

  “It’s access to products, everyday things they need,” she said of the customers previously served all over Franklin County and parts of Androscoggin, Oxford, Somerset and Kennebec counties. Otherwise it could mean a trip to Lewiston, Augusta or Waterville.

The new store will add more products, including rehab seating or power wheelchairs, stair and porch lifts, as well as accessibility ramps, Macmaster said. Everything else will remain the same except the oxygen supply.

“It happened really fast,” he said of his effort to purchase and reopen the store only hours after a friend told him about the planned closing.

Macmaster worked several years for Jackson Lab but always wanted to go into business for himself, he said. He purchased a small medical supply business in Bangor in 2007 and then expanded to include a second store at the Bangor Mall, Maine Mobility and More, he said.

He had an opportunity to expand into Waterville and with the addition of the Farmington store his business carries a large footprint across the state serving customers from Rumford east to the Canadian border.

“This business has opened by eyes to the basic needs of people in society,” he said.

With four stores, insurance billing will be done at one site, saving on expenses, Laviolette said. The multiple stores will also mean better pricing for them to purchase stock, allowing the addition of other products.

The three employees left at Farmington Medical Supply had started searching for other employment and had liquidated much of the product before learning of the sale, she said. They bring the number of Macmaster’s employees to 23 and will, for the first time, receive health care benefits where none were offered before, he said

Macmaster was at the store Tuesday to sign a lease for the building. New signs will be in place within a few days and the store will now be open an extra hour a day, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Deliveries of medical supplies in the local area will continue, he said.

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Employees of the new Mac-Lin Medical Supply store on Wilton Road in Farmington confer Tuesday with the new owner. Store manager Brenda Laviolette, left, owner Lance Macmaster and employees James Soule and Debbie McGrath will continue to serve the needs of county residents with the addition of some new high-tech products.

Employees of the new Mac-Lin Medical
Supply store on Wilton Road in Farmington confer Tuesday with the new
owner. Store manager Brenda Laviolette, left, owner Lance Macmaster and
employees James Soule and Debbie McGrath will continue to serve the
needs of county residents with the addition of some new high-tech
products.