FORT KENT, Maine — While Mooseshack restaurant owner Becky Lawn is fighting through some of the worst physical pain imaginable at the burn unit of Maine Medical Center in Portland, her family is doing all they can to keep the business afloat on East Main Street in Fort Kent.
“That’s her life. That’s her livelihood. It’s just important that we kept it going, so we’ve kept it open for her,” Lawn’s oldest daughter, 31-year-old April Hafford, said.
Lawn was injured May 13 while draining oil from a fryer in the restaurant’s kitchen.
“A lot of people are under the impression she got splattered by hot grease. I don’t think they realize how severe she’s hurt,” the daughter said.
Hafford, who works for her mother several days per week at Mooseshack, happened to be on shift when her mother began changing the oil in the fryer.
“My mother has done that a million times,” Hafford said.
But this time, things went terribly wrong. Lawn turned a valve to release the oil from the fryer, which began draining into a 5-gallon heavy-duty plastic jug, as she always did.
“It was coming out like normal, and then it just — the jug just blew up. It blew right out,” Hafford recalled. “The oil was everywhere. She slipped and fell right flat on her back. The jug had (blown) out so the valve was turned so the rest of the gallons of [hot] oil were just guzzling all over the floor. She was trying to get up out of it.”
Lawn’s brother, Melford “Meffie” Hafford Jr. happened to stop by the restaurant shortly before the incident.
“He’d stopped in there, thank God,” April Hafford said. “He had his work boots on. He walked through it and picked my mother up through that hot grease.”
However, by that time Lawn had suffered third-degree burns to her back, as well as to the backs of her arms, shoulders, hands and feet.
“Her left side got it worse because she leaned on her left side to try to get up on her feet,” the daughter said.
April Hafford initially dialed 911 but felt the process of answering questions was taking too long, so Meffie Hafford placed Lawn in April Hafford’s car and drove her mother to Northern Maine Medical Center just up Station Hill from the restaurant. Soon Lawn was on a Lifeflight helicopter headed to the burn unit in Portland.
April and Meffie Hafford are working to keep the Mooseshack going — no easy task, considering the many hours Lawn spent running the restaurant.
Lawn also has three other daughters, including Jaime, 29, and Chapin, 24. Briar, just 10 years old, was living at home with Lawn before the incident but is staying with April Hafford and her four children in Allagash while Lawn is in the hospital.
Lawn originally opened the Mooseshack in St. Francis in 2009 but moved to the Fort Kent location in 2014. The restaurant gained some fame in October 2014 when nurse Kaci Hickox, who was under a self-imposed quarantine at her then home in Fort Kent after her return from Ebola-stricken western Africa, said during a news conference in front of national television cameras that she was looking forward to enjoying a pizza from the Mooseshack.
The next day April Hafford ran a media gauntlet of reporters and cameras to deliver Hickox’s favorite pie — pepperoni, mushrooms and black olives — to the house.
The Mooseshack employs three to four non-relatives at any given time, but April and Meffie Hafford are trying to fill as many hours as possible to save on payroll while Lawn recovers.
“We’re trying to fill in her shoes,” April Hafford said, a situation that will endure for some time. Even after Lawn is released from the hospital, she will require home care as she recovers. Three days after the incident, Lawn underwent a skin graft operation, during which doctors removed healthy skin from her thighs.
“She’s in so much pain, it’s awful, from the burns. Then they did that surgery Monday. I talked to her Monday night, and she was just crying. She said she feels like she’s where she started when she first got there because it hurt so much,” the daughter said. “They got her on a lot of pain medication, but it’s still — that’s, like, on your skin.”
April Hafford said she appreciates the outpouring of support from people who have called and sent messages on Facebook, but she has been busy running the restaurant and caring for her children and sister so has been unable to respond to them all.
As a result of those communications, April Hafford said she discovered there is much information being passed around the community about her mother’s condition.
“Me and the girls went down grocery shopping Sunday, and a lot of people at the grocery store said, ‘Oh, I heard your mom’s coming home today.’ No — definitely not,” Hafford said. “Then I’ve got people writing to tell me they heard she was in Boston and wasn’t gonna make it.”
Doctors initially planned to discharge Lawn from the hospital May 20 but determined her body had not adequately recovered enough to discharge her on that date. The current plan is to discharge her Tuesday, May 24, barring any setbacks, according to April Hafford.
Then there is the video. A friend from out of state visited Lawn in the Portland hospital and filmed footage of Lawn, covered in bandages and a hospital gown, taking slow steps down the corridor with the assistance of a walker.
The video found it’s way to Facebook causing many to assume Lawn was “back on her feet” so to speak.
Hafford said her mother was heavily medicated when the video was shot and bedridden again immediately afterward, regretting the experience because of the pain that followed.
“My mother is very strong willed and knows what she wants to do, but it was too much too soon.”
Lawn has no medical insurance.
“We carry workers comp at the Mooseshack, but she owns the business so she’s waived under workers comp,” April said.
To combat the cost of Lawn’s expenses, a Go Fund Me page has been set up in an effort to raise $5,000. As of Monday afternoon, $2,445 had been raised. Donations may also be mailed to April Hafford’s address at 122 Dickey Road, Allagash, Maine 04774.
April Hafford also wants people to know the Mooseshack remains open for business, as Lawn wants it.