FARMINGTON — Larry Lord, the LEAP Inc. maintenance supervisor who was critically injured seven weeks ago in a propane explosion, was upgraded Monday from serious to fair condition at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
Farmington Fire Rescue Capt. Michael Bell, 68, was killed Sept. 16 when the LEAP central office building exploded, and six firefighters and Lord were seriously or critically injured.
All but one of the injured firefighters were flown to Maine Medical Center in Portland, while Lord was flown to the Boston hospital the day of the explosion. Since then, all of the injured firefighters have returned home, and three of them are back working at the Fire Rescue Department.
Lord is credited for helping to get nearly a dozen employees out of the building and to safety before firefighters arrived to investigate the smell of propane in the building. The building exploded minutes later.
Along with being LEAP’s maintenance supervisor, Lord, 61, of Jay is also the animal control officer in Livermore Falls and an avid hunter.
The Farmington Fire Rescue Department returned to a “new normal” Friday when it went back to fully covering Farmington. About 80 fire departments and several firefighters from different departments assisted Farmington with coverage for nearly seven weeks.
Fire Rescue Chief Terry Bell, Capt. Scott Baxter and his father, firefighter Ted Baxter, are recovering at home.
Deputy Fire Chief S. Clyde Ross, Capt. Tim “TD” Hardy and firefighter Joseph Hastings have returned to work.
Investigators discovered that some of the hundreds of gallons of propane pumped into a tank Sept. 13 had leaked from a broken line under the parking lot into the basement of LEAP’s building.
The cause of the leak and what sparked the explosion remain under investigation.
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