Art Hains returning to Chiefs’ pregame show after dealing with health issue last year

Chiefs fans will be happy to see the return of Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and other Super Bowl champions to the football field on Sunday.

Before the Chiefs face the Saints in New Orleans in a preseason game, those fans also will welcome back a familiar voice: Art Hains.

Last September, Hains fell ill after contracting the West Nile Virus and went to a hospital in Springfield, where he lives and calls Missouri State football games.

Hains’ condition soon deteriorated and he moved to intensive care and later was airlifted to the University of Kansas Medical Center, the Springfield News-Ledger reported at the time.

KY3.com said Hains, 67, later moved to a facility in Lincoln, Nebraska, but he returned to Springfield in May and has been staying in a rehabilitation center. That story noted Hains at one point had paralysis in his body that “extended from head to toe.”

“It’s just mind-blowing a mosquito bite can practically take your life,” Art’s son Chris Hains told KY3’s Joe Hickman. “This happens to 700 people on the planet a year, and it’s extremely rare. Unfortunately, it affected his entire body all the way to the top of his head.”

Fortunately, Hains has improved to the point where he once again will be able to work for the Chiefs’ radio network.

Hains will do Sunday’s Chiefs pregame and postgame shows “remotely from his room at his Springfield rehabilitation center location,” Wyatt D. Wheeler of the News-Ledger wrote.

“These are all little families that I have with Chiefs radio and certainly Missouri State,” Hains told Wheeler. “I was a little bit ambitious at first and thought I would do all of the Missouri State games but I think doing home games this year is going to be enough. I’m looking forward to all of that like I do every year and see how the teams fare.”

Hains co-hosts the Chiefs’ pregame and postgame shows with Dan Israel. They air on WDAF (106.5 FM) and KCSP (610 AM).