When we lived in Ainsworth, in north-central Nebraska, a friend was incredulous over one state official's plan for medical care.

"Helicopters!" She scoffed. And I had to agree at the time. In that neck of the woods -- make that neck of the rolling, stubby-grass covered hills -- we used to drive an hour to get to the nearest discount store. And, it wasn't a super-megastore, either.

No, keeping the small local hospital in operation was, and still is a priority, especially when a blizzard is roaring right out of Canada or it's too foggy to see across the street.

But, as the father of a child who has been saved by a helicopter, twice, it's nice to know they are available.

When we were intimately involved with the air ambulance, the "joke" was that if Kearney's air ambulance got a call and didn't know where it was, it would head for Southwest Nebraska.

So I didn't have any doubt that the new MedStar helicopter based in McCook would have plenty to do.

Now, a couple of months into operation, the service has won a lot more converts.

One of them is Norm Liakos of Curtis, who was checking on his goats when he thought he had brushed against some barbed wire, or sandburs.

According to last week's Hi-Line Enterprise, he soon discovered, to his horror, that he had been bitten three times by a rattler.

His tongue and lips were going numb by the time he had driven himself home, about a quarter mile away, and the feeling was leaving his limbs by the time the Curtis Ambulance met the vehicle carrying Norm, his wife, Pat, and EMT Marcia Owens.

His best chance was the McCook or North Platte hospital, but construction on U.S. Highway 83, north and south of the Maywood junction didn't bode well for his chances, but McCook's helicopter was already warming up.

Physician Assistant Terry Gourley, at the Curtis Medical Center, administered Ringer's Lactate and oxygen while a landing zone was cleared on the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture's soccer field.

A strong tailwind helped the helicopter make it from Curtis to the Great Plains Regional Medical Center in North Platte in nine minutes, but even then, Norm's blood pressure had dropped to 47 over 22, according to the Curtis newspaper.

Two days in the intensive care center, 18 doses of anti-venom, and Norm was out of the woods, so to speak.

He's now home and on the mend, but it always takes longer to heal than we would like.

Even helicopters can't always get through, but thank God they're available.

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My brother-in-law would have liked to have had a helicopter available back in high school when he had his encounter with a rattler.

An accomplished cross-country runner, he was 10 miles from town and turning around when the snake struck.

With Interstate 80 a mile to the south, there aren't that many drivers on that section of Highway 30, and those who did pass by were used to seeing the high school boy running along the road.

If they had looked a little closer, they would have noticed that he was running barefoot, carrying his new running shoes, because he didn't want them to get bloody from the snake-bite wound.

That bleeding might be what saved him from serious injury, or, because it was fall, the snake might have been short of venom from other activity.

As it was, he was on crutches for a while, and earned a new nick name at school.

If you see Tracey Refior around town, you might see if he answers to "Fang."

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My wife was about 4 when she found herself backed up against a tree by an angry rattlesnake. Her older brother, 5, dispatched the snake with a stick, and possibly saved his sister's life.

Their mother was skeptical about the story until her husband showed her the rattles from the reptile.

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McCook native Jay Johnson is understandably proud of the "Oklahoma Miss," P-51 Mustang fighter plane he helped restore for Alva, Okla., owner Bob Baker.

The plane took World War II grand champion honors at the Experimental Aircraft Association's annual convention in Oshkosh, Wis., earlier this month.

The plane, built in 1944, went on to serve in the Royal Canadian Air Force, and was actually saved from the scrap heap in 1962.

You can get a look at it at: http://www.mustangsmustangs.net/p-51/survivors/pag...

It was always fun to see what warbirds stopped by Jay's fixed-base operation at the McCook airport this time of year. One day, I helped him push a P-40 with magneto troubles off the runway.

You don't get to do that every day.

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I caught some flack from some of the guys when I admitted that I enjoyed watching the synchronized diving competition at the Olympics on Monday night. But, one of them admitted, at least it was better than Sunday night's basketball game.