-Contact

A couple of days later I was rejuvenated and decided to resume my search.  I had spent the intervening time thinking about the specific groups of people that may have had something to do with the incident.  I figured if I could identify them, I could contact them and see if anyone specifically knew about the crash, or even had heard about it.

The County Sheriff where we crashed had come to mind, and I decided that I would start there.  I figured they would be an excellent place for records, and there may have even been someone there who remembered the whole thing.  My rudimentary knowledge of Nebraska geography was insufficient to remember what county I was talking about.  But I was armed with modern search engine technology so I typed: “Hebron Nebraska."

I was immediately rewarded with a list of topics to choose from.  The first one I clicked was a link to the official site of Hebron.  This proclaimed the place 'A nice place on the Trail,' as well as the proud keeper of the worlds largest porch swing.   I didn't immediately get the trail reference, I am ashamed to say now having been raised in Nebraska, but the porch swing comment made me chuckle.  I guess you learn something every day. 

A quick look at the site revealed that the town was in Thayer County.  I went back to Google and typed in 'Thayer County Sherrif,' and waited.

"Did you mean Thayer County Sheriff?" Google asked back.  I always got that wrong!

Annoyed, I retyped it correctly and clicked on the link that was produced.  A webpage popped up with the information for the County Sheriff.  To my chagrin it did not contain an email link, only a phone number.  Satisfied to get anything, I scribbled it down and set it aside.  I was excited.  I knew that they would have records of some kind.

I picked up the telephone on my desk and dialed the number.  A very Midwestern sounding lady answered at the other end.  After several moments of trying to explain what I was doing, she told me to hold on.  She would ask around and I was clicked on hold.

She came back a few moments later and informed me that no one there knew of it, which she wasn’t very surprised about as most of the department was in their thirty's and wouldn’t have been involved in the search anyway, as they were all kids at the time.  She also said all records that old would have been destroyed years ago, so no luck.

 Dejected, I thanked her and she wished me good luck and clicked off.  Where to go now?

 I thought about it some more, and another thought hit me.  How about the hospital?  But there was no way that they'd remember.  I was sure nobody at the hospital that night would have even been there today.  I mean it had been thirty years!  Besides, if the County Sheriff didn’t even have a web address, what could I expect from some tiny hospital?  But maybe they had a record - at least somewhere to start.  I figured it was worth a shot. 

I searched the Hebron City home page for a reference to the Hebron hospital, but was instead drawn to the link to the Thayer County Health Services.  I clicked it.  In front of me popped up a very nice website, the kind you'd find from a real hospital, with a picture of a large and modern looking facility. 

I blinked at it.  I am not sure what I expected the hospital to be – maybe something like a crumbling one room brick building with a rickety old metal exam table and dirty glass jars full of cotton balls and thermometers soaking in alcohol. 

I certainly didn't expect this place.  I figured that it must have been a newer and larger facility than the one we ended up at that night, even though the address said it was in Hebron.  Maybe they knew something about the other place.  The one I had envisioned all these years that wasn’t this place.  If there was no other hospital, then this place had to be where we were. 

And they had an email contact link.  I clicked it and a blank email screen popped up.  I typed:

          "Hello…" then stopped.  I realized that I didn't really know what to say.  I hadn’t exactly thought about it.  How could I tell about what I was doing briefly and not sound like some kind of weirdo?  Moreover, what if someone did remember, but were still mad at my dad for some things he said in the wake of our trip there? 

It occurred to me that I probably couldn't even get the information for the rest of my family, what with privacy laws and the like.  They probably didn't even keep records for that long.  I felt again like I was wasting my time. 

The motivation I had felt moments earlier quickly drained from me.

I pointed the mouse to the X at the upper right hand corner of the window and clicked it.  The email page disappeared unceremoniously back into cyberspace.  I stared at the bottom of the Thayer County Health Services homepage again.  The email option sat quietly before me, waiting for me to continue, but I hesitated.

I was scared and paralyzed again.  My stomach had twisted up and my jaw was locked and rigid, grinding my molars into each other.  Why?  Why would I be afraid of this?  It was just a request for information.  Information was what I needed.  It can't hurt you, I thought.  It can't!  Beside, you weren’t going to find anything anyway…

            "Bah!" I muttered, trying to fling off the feeling.  I clicked on the link again renewing my energy and typed in:

            “Hello.  I am writing because I was a survivor of a small airplane that crashed in a field near Hebron on February 17, 1976. I believe that the Thayer County Health Services was where we made it to after being rescued from the scene and was where we received our initial care prior to transport to Lincoln General Hospital.  I am looking for anyone who remembers that night, and would like to talk to them about the incident.  Please let me know if anyone is around from that night, or if you know of anyone locally who might remember the incident.  Anyone with any information at all can contact me.”

            I hovered the mouse arrow over the send icon and physically forcing myself to overcome the fear that tried to stop me, depressed the button under my index finger with a slight click.  The email disappeared. 

A moment of regret stabbed me in the side, but was over quickly.  I considered the sensation left by the whole thing, and then concluded that it had not been so bad.  It'll probably take weeks to get a response anyway, if anyone responds at all.

            I suddenly now felt like I had actually accomplished something.  This was becoming a project again!  I felt reinvigorated and I went back to the Google homepage, and studied the bright white screen, waiting for inspiration to guide me where to go next. 

Who else..?    

           

Twelve hundred miles away and a few micro bleeps later, a small box declaring that new mail had arrived popped up on the screen of Hospital Administrator Joyce Beck’s desktop computer at the Thayer County Medical Center in Hebron Nebraska.  She was out when it came, but found it there when she returned later that day. 

She mouse-clicked her way into her email in-box and saw the heading from a name she had never heard of before.  The words in the heading caught her attention first as she began to scan my note.

            “Oh great,” she thought after the first few words. “We’re about to get sued.” 

She directed the mouse over the forward key, ready to just send it to the legal department when the other words caught her attention, causing her to pause. 

What was that about a plane crash? 

She hesitated then began at the top and read the entire email, relaxing the pressure that may have ended my quest altogether.  Her better judgment was screaming in her head to just get rid of it, but instead she stared at the words for a long time.  She found that she was touched by them.  They carried a silent sort of desperation that even I wasn’t aware of.  She thought that whoever had sent this was looking for something very badly. 

She looked away from the computer screen and thought about what to do.  Perhaps, she thought, there would be no harm in asking around.  There was a few staff still here that were around in the seventies, after all.

            Besides, she was curious.  She was a pilot herself, and seeing the words of a survivor of a crash was very intriguing.  As it is with all pilots, there were lesson that could be gleaned from those who have ridden a plane into the ground.  It was the strange wisdom of survivors.  There were indeed things to be learned; things only they could know.

With a new determination, she decided to help.  If she was wrong, she was wrong.  But she didn’t think she was.  She hit the reply icon and rattled off a quick response: 

“Randy, I am the CEO of the hospital.  I have not had the time yet to investigate this but I am sure I can help you.  Give me some time and I will get the information for you.  I look forward to meeting you.  I will be in touch.”

Then Joyce pushed her chair back from the desk, got up and strode into the hallway, looking for Helen.