LIVERMORE FALLS — Fred Nadeau, the town’s transfer station attendant, is scheduled to undergo open heart surgery on Christmas Eve day at a Lewiston hospital.

Nadeau, a former Regional School Unit 36 director and vice chairman until June this year, said from his hospital room Wednesday that he had been having pain in his chest, right arm and jaw off and on for about a month.

“I had burning sensations in my chest for two solid days and couldn’t sleep at night,” Nadeau, of Livermore Falls, said, about the pain he suffered over the weekend.

His wife, Betty, said her husband called the doctor’s office on Monday to make an appointment. After he explained the symptoms that he had been experiencing, he was told to go directly to the emergency room, she said.

Tests were done at Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington and it was determined her husband had a heart attack, she said. They transferred him to Central Maine Medical Center Lewiston on Monday night.

He was medicated and resting comfortably on Wednesday, she said.

“We just never, never expected this,” she said.

According to Betty, her husband would complain of pain and then it would go away after a day or so in the last month or so, but it got to be too much this weekend.

Fred Nadeau, 60, said he doesn’t know when the heart attack occurred but has been told it was probably leading up to a bigger one.

Nadeau said he is scheduled to have a minimum of three bypasses Thursday — maybe four or five.

He was told to expect to spend five or six days in the hospital after the surgery. Exactly how long it will be before he is allowed to return to work is unknown, but probably it would be about eight weeks.

“My biggest concern is that the people of the community will not take this too seriously and enjoy the holiday,” Nadeau said.

In the meantime, Livermore Falls highway foreman Bill Nichols is scrambling to get the manpower to take over Nadeau’s duties at the transfer station.

“We have a plan for the holiday hours,” Town Manager Jim Chaousis said.

There is a backup plan with Jay, if it comes down to not finding people to be able to cover, he said.

The station is regularly scheduled to close at noon Thursday, remain closed Christmas Day and reopen for normal hours over the weekend, Nichols said. The station is also closed on New Year’s Day.

On Wednesday, highway employee Rodney Lake was manning the station through the morning hours, Nichols said. Carroll Bowie, a resident who substitutes for Nadeau when he is off, was expected to come in at noon to take over. Bowie will fill in when he is available.

It wouldn’t be cost efficient to have highway employees fill in all of the hours needed because it is not in the transfer station budget, Nichols said.

“So far it has been hard to have anybody go down on weekends because of the holidays,” Nichols said. “People will have to be patient and bear with us. If it gets to be too hectic, we may have to shut the gate and reopen them once we get caught up.”

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Fred Nadeau