94-year-old man praises Kalispell health care

Hollister “Pat” McVay isn’t a typical 94-year old, inside or out.

At least, according to anyone who knows him, including his doctors.

This comes after he woke up in considerable pain several weeks ago. His daughter Verna Swanson and a neighbor quickly whisked him to Kalispell Regional Medical Center.

“The minute I entered the emergency room, I was in professional care and it didn’t stop until I left,” McVay said. “They ran me through the [CT-scan] and rushed me right into the operating room.”

Dr. Bennett Dykstra had placed a stent near McVay’s left kidney a few years earlier and it had broken. McVay was losing a considerable amount of blood internally and needed a new stent as soon as possible.

There was one problem: The hospital didn’t have the right size.

“They sent a plane to Spokane to get the right size,” McVay said. “They kept me under anesthetic for two hours until it came back. I would have a whole lot rather stayed there than got on the plane. There was never even a thought of flying me to Spokane. They went just for the stent.”

By that evening, with the new stent installed, he was sitting up and joking with the nurses, as happy and healthy as a 94-year old can be.

To hear McVay tell it, the best medical care he has ever received was in the Flathead Valley. A year ago, after suffering serious injuries from a wreck on his four-wheeler in Arizona, he was carted to a hospital there.

“They didn’t even wash the blood off my face the whole time I was there,” he said. “I would brag about the care I got here in Kalispell to anybody in God’s world.”

As gracious as he is about the medical care, those who treated him were more than happy to make his stay comfortable.

“The nurses were almost fighting over who was going to take care of him,” Swanson said.

McVay is a World War II veteran and was the first shift supervisor at Hungry Horse Dam when it opened in the early 1950s. He was born in Oklahoma in 1920 and is perhaps best known for teaching the first-ever hunter safety classes in Montana, starting in 1957.

He started the 4-H shooting programs in Montana more than 30 years ago and has hunted for nearly 90 years.

“One of the kind of neat things was that one of the girls in the operating room was my beef barn manager at the fair a few years ago,” McVay said. “A lot of the other girls had been in my hunter safety classes.”

Although it might feel easy to get personal medical care when you know half the people in the hospital, the good-natured nonagenarian said he thinks the hospital workers have more to them than that.

“They did everything they could to make me feel better,” McVay said. “And I got a lot of hugs from good-looking nurses. There was so something so special to the care they gave. But I’m sure I wasn’t the only special person to get care like that. They had a lot of practice.”

With the nurses, physicians, surgeons, anesthesiologists, respiratory techs and other assorted medical professionals filing in and out of the room, McVay never found himself without a smile to greet him.

At 94, his health surprises everyone but the people who know him best.

“He just lives his life,” Swanson said. “He has a drink every afternoon. We think he has super glue in his veins instead of blood.”

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.