Invisible Injuries & New Hope: How Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) Transformed a Team USA Bobsledder’s Life with William Person

What happens when your identity, memory, and sense of self are stripped away by an invisible injury?

In this episode of Live Parkinson’s Live an Exceptional Life, host Chris Kustanbauter sits down with William Person, a former Team USA bobsledder. William spent nine years hurtling down ice tracks at 90 mph, enduring G-forces that most people will never experience. While it looked like a dream career, the hidden toll of "Sled Head"—a series of micro-concussions and brain inflammation—led William into a dark battle with CTE-like symptoms, severe depression, and a "fog" that lasted for a decade.

William shares the raw reality of his journey: from not recognizing his own girlfriend to praying for an end to his suffering. He also reveals the breakthrough that saved his life—Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy 

In this episode, we discuss:

• The "Sled Head" Phenomenon: The brutal reality of high G-forces and "shaking baby syndrome" in professional sports.
• Invisible Symptoms: Why brain injuries and Parkinson’s often share the same "hidden" struggles, like brain fog, confusion, and memory loss.
• The Power of HBOT: How oxygen therapy can reduce brain inflammation and potentially help those with various neurological conditions.
• A Mission of Recovery: William’s journey to open a nonprofit CTE recovery center near St. Louis to provide free restorative care for veterans and athletes.
• Finding Purpose: Why restoring the spirit is just as vital as restoring brain health.

Whether you are living with Parkinson’s, recovering from a traumatic brain injury (TBI), or supporting a loved one through a neurological journey, William’s story is a testament to resilience and possibility .

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Episode Mission
• 0:24 William’s Story And CTE Symptoms
• 2:11 From Track To Team USA Bobsled
• 5:16 The Brutal Reality Of G-Forces
• 7:16 Early Red Flags And Crashes
• 12:10 Living With Cognitive Loss And Confusion
• 18:56 Discovering Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
• 23:31 What HBOT Feels Like And Access
• 31:47 Cost, Insurance, And Advocacy
• 38:17 Veterans, PTSD, And CTE Risks
• 45:56 Barriers, Lawsuits, And Athlete Safety

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:10

Hello, and welcome to Live Parkinson's Live an Exceptional Life. I'm your host, Chris Customer, and I've been living an exceptional life with Parkinson's for the past 15 years. The mission of the podcast is to help as many people living with Parkinson's as possible to lead a great quality of life. Now, today's episode is a powerful and deeply human conversation about invisible brain injury, loss, hope, and purpose. My guest is William Person, a former team USA Bobsledder whose life took a dramatic turn after years of high impact athletics, and that led to devastating CTE-like symptoms. Williams experienced severe depression, confusion, and brain fog, so intense that it stripped away his sense of identity, his relationships, and nearly his ability to function day to day. Like many in our Parkinson's community, William's symptoms were largely invisible, yet profoundly life altering. After trying countless approaches with little relief, William discovered hyperbaric oxygen therapy, or HBOT. After just one session, he experienced clarity, relief, and hope for the first time in years, marking the beginning of a remarkable turnaround in his life. Today, William is channeling his recovery into a mission far bigger than himself. He has launched a GoFundMe to open a nonprofit CTE Recovery Center near St. Louis, designed to provide free hyperbaric oxygen therapy and a 30-day restorative stay for athletes and veterans suffering from hidden and often misunderstood effects of brain injury. In this conversation, we'll explore Williams' journey from elite athlete to advocate and the emotional toll of neurological suffering, the importance of hope and connection, and why restoring purpose may be just as important as restoring brain health. Whether you're living with Parkinson's, supporting someone who is, or simply searching for stories of resilience and possibility, then this episode's for you. So take a deep breath, get comfortable, and join me for this inspiring conversation with William Person. Welcome. Thank you. I appreciate you having me. Can you tell me a little bit about your life before where you are now? If you went back as an athlete and a person, how how does that differ from where you are today?

SPEAKER_00: 2:18

Oh my God. Man, that's night and day. This is uh actually when I started with Team USA, I had um I had opened the first ever independent living transitional housing program uh for the state of Utah. And so I was I was helping youth kind of find uh independence. I was trying to catch them before they got into correctional system. And some of my I didn't uh I didn't begin to help them until after they left Secure Care. But that's kind of what I was doing at the time. Like I was just loving life. Uh I was uh traveling around the world, representing Team USA at uh during World Cup, America's Cup, Bob Sleding, World Championships, things like that. And I'm just just enjoying life, just really enjoying life until my symptoms started to kick in. And once the symptoms kicked in, uh life changed, dress drastically changed for me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 3:10

So how did you get into the bobsledding? I mean, I with the Olympics coming up and everybody's excited to watch those. And I'm uh bobsledding and loser are, you know, probably two of my favorite winter Olympic sports to watch. So how did you get into that? And then maybe after that we can talk about how the impact that you took on a daily basis led to some of the issues that you have today.

SPEAKER_00: 3:31

Yeah, well, I started out as a track and field athlete. I was um I was a long jumper, uh sprinter. And so uh I think around 2000 uh, no, that's not right, 1998, I believe, um, they started doing tryouts for the 2002 Warner Olympic team. Uh, for even at the Salt Lake City games coming up. And so my phone started ringing. I was probably the biggest, proportion wise, I was the biggest, fastest athlete in the state of Utah at the time. And so people asked me to come try out. And uh the truth is I really didn't want to do the sport because it looked kind of, you know, dangerous. I remember watching it as a kid, and so I didn't want anything to do with that. But uh it was my last couple years of track and field, and uh, I was like, well, you know, if I go for this tryout, it's being covered by NBC. Maybe I'll pick up a sponsor for my last year or so. And and that's what I tried to do. And so I went out for this tryout, and uh, these cameras were there. Doing a tryout, I set a new record. And this guy, his eyes got really big, and he offered me a lot of money to race on this team for three months. And uh and that's kind of how it started. The truth was, he didn't uh have the funding to pay me. He didn't have sponsors in place yet. And matter of fact, uh I explained it this way the best way to explain it is uh no matter how fast I pushed him on the track, the women's teams were beating us to the bottom. So we didn't have a chance. We weren't gonna be competitive. And by the time I realized that, uh some of the bigger teams were in in town, they saw me pick me up, and uh the rest was history. Next thing by the next year or so I was on the national team and uh just you know, just enjoying, just you know, doing something I always wanted to do, which was represent Team USA at the Olympic level. So it's just it was just a journey, just a just a huge journey.

SPEAKER_01: 5:16

So when you're bobsledding, you uh you know, you see people them wearing the helmets, but how often did you have concussions or did you impact the sides of the bobsled that led to the CTE like conditions that you have?

SPEAKER_00: 5:34

Well, I've I've I remember one time racing in Altenburg, Germany. I cracked a helmet and we didn't crash just from the pressure of that track. That track is very um unforgiving and very um it's brutal. It's just that's the best way to explain it. Let me take a second, let me back up. I've taken a lot of people on bobstead rides. And anybody who's ever compared it to roller coasters, it looks the same, right? Uh same type of turn, same type of uh shape of the equipment that you're in. But the truth is when you're in a in a um roller coaster, people going, wee, hey, it's fun, you know. Uh when you're in a bobsled, I heard everybody explains it the same way. It's like everybody was fighting for their life. So it's kind of it's very um, it's intense. It's very intense. Yeah. So you'll have people come out there who who like extreme sports. Once I took Cameron Diaz down the track, and like I heard she really liked extreme sports. But when she finished that bobsled ride, and she couldn't talk for a little bit. She was just a little bit flustered. You know, all she can say was it was rough. That's all she can get out was rough, you know. She was trying to tell me it was rough, but uh she sounded like a dog because she was barking. But uh yeah, but it's it's that kind of thing, you know. When people get out of that sled, it's like they've they've met God. They saw God for the first time. So it's pretty it's pretty intense with the with the G forces and stuff. It's not the speed, it's just really the G forces that get us.

SPEAKER_01: 7:04

So did you have a lot of concussions then? Did that so did your symptoms, the CTE like symptoms, did they come on gradually that you noticed it, or did all they just seem to start all of a sudden?

SPEAKER_00: 7:15

It was gradual. When I was still competing, the first red flag I had was um I would wake up in the middle of the night and I wouldn't know where I was at. Like I would have this little panic attack or something. Like I'm I'm really confused. I have no idea where I'm at. So I would jump up, turn the lights on, and look at the pictures on the wall. Pictures on the wall always let me know where I'm at. And so that was one of my first red flags, and that was after my second or third year racing. So I had another um, I did nine years, I did another six years with already having symptoms from concussion that I I didn't know what they were, though. I had I had no idea. You know, matter of fact, I rationalized it. No, I'm saying I rationalized my symptoms because I'm traveling so much.

unknown: 7:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 7:58

No, that's okay. I was I was just asking, when what years did you experience those that you did the racing and then you ex started to experience those symptoms?

SPEAKER_00: 8:08

Was it the truth is I don't have No most of them were in the 2000s. My my first real crash was um in 2001 or 2002, right before the Winter Olympics. I don't know if it was in that December or if it was in January, because we had the the opening ceremonies were in um February that year. And so I know it was a few weeks before opening ceremonies, we crashed, a really bad crash in Switch uh Switzerland, same Marit, Switzerland. And uh man, yeah, it was just brutal. Like uh like I had Vertigo for about a week. Um my teammate was knocked unconscious, who was a guy sitting behind me that day. Um yeah, he still has a lot of struggles to this day. But like what I learned now about the sport, now that I'm forced to look at it and research this thing and try to figure this out. Like every time I went down that track, I we were getting those micro concussions. And I do we didn't know that when I was competing. Like uh if you go to a lake early in the morning, you'll see like the really smooth water, right? It's so smooth, like glass. That's how the ice is supposed to look. But there's a lot of days where there's there's like little ripples in it. So you run that bobsled across those ripples going 90, 85, 90, 95 miles an hour. Um if your mouth isn't closed tight, like jaw closed, clenched, your teeth will chatter. So it's it's equivalent to shaking baby syndrome. Like if somebody just grabbed you and just started to shake you. Um, and so I think that's part of the problem, is those those shaking. And then the G-forces, they told us we're pulling four, maybe five G-Forces. Uh, article came back by came out by the New York Times called Sledhead. They tested one of the tracks, and they tested one of the mildest tracks, matter of fact, in uh up in Canada, the one where you saw the movie, uh, if you ever saw the movie Cool Runnings, that's where they shot most of that that rate. That uh movie was shot mostly up there in Calgary. So it's a very mild track. And so that track has spikes of 84.5 G forces. And so um it's it just makes sense why everybody's brain is kind of mushed right now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 10:13

Now, do they still have the same problem today?

SPEAKER_00: 10:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 10:17

With people with the case.

SPEAKER_00: 10:20

Most of the suicides happened. I'm sorry, I mean to cut you off there. Oh no, go ahead. No. I said most of the suicides that I know about, they happened after after um no, one was in 2002, right after the the Salt Lake City games. That was the first suicide that I knew about. And then the rest started to happen around 2018 or so, I believe. I'm not sure about some of them, but they it was a right around, it was a cluster. They just started to happen more and more. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 10:48

Yeah, and that's the reason I wanted to talk to you. You know, I've had a number of concussions too. I played high school and college football and in this back in the late 70s, early 80s, and a lot of times back then they'd say, Oh, you got your bell wrong, just get back in there. Yeah. And you'd have all these terrible headaches and other symptoms like you're discussing, but it was they don't have the concussion protocols that they do now, and you know, people have to sit out. So so after you started experiencing a lot of those symptoms, how did that affect your life? So they started to get more severe as time went on, is that correct?

SPEAKER_00: 11:22

Yeah, like even right now, I'm talking to you today. Today is not one of my best days. A lot of people I know who use hyperbaric oxygen, they'll get to the point where they don't need it anymore. They're like, they'll get the permanent relief. But for myself, if I go 30 days without it, then I usually I'll start going backwards again. I'll start getting my symptoms back. And so for me, like I try to, even though I start to feel better, like I always try to put some little testers in there for me. Every so often I'll I'll stop doing the hyperbaric oxygen just to see where I'm at. And I just did another test and it didn't work out very well for me. So now I'm back just trying to recalibrate again. But a lot of people they get in there and they don't ever need like Joe Namath, the guy who who introduced me to hyperbaric oxygen, he said he doesn't need it anymore. And so many, when I start doing the research, those so many people don't need it anymore. But I think I it's because I raced for nine years. And I I think I I took between one to six rides a day for four to five months of the year. Nine years of that, it took a toll on me. I think that's gives me the it gives me enough relief, but it's never a permanent relief. It's always I have to, you know, be conscious of where this machine is and how I'm feeling. Yeah, so that's the Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 12:30

So people that aren't aren't familiar with CTE, or can you explain some of the symptoms that that someone with CTE or from your own personal experience, what type of symptoms did you experience? And then on top of that, what impact did that have on your your daily life?

SPEAKER_00: 12:45

Well, man, it changes your life. I tell you, my one of my my first symptoms we already talked about, which was uh the first one. Man, see I'm so cloudy today, it's just like, you know. But um, the first one we just talked about, uh not knowing where I'm at. You know, and then I got to the point where like one of the biggest ones that really jumped at me, and it was an early one too. I I hadn't been back to my apartment in Salt Lake in a long time. So I went back to see some friends. And we went out to shoot pool. And uh my buddy was looking at this young lady walking in the board in the door. He was like, hey man, there's your ex-girlfriend over there. And I looked at her and uh I was like, I I don't know her. And then she ran over and she jumped in my arms and she was so excited to see me. And uh I I caught her when she jumped into my arms, but like I I didn't remember her at the time, you know. And uh that was one that's one of my symptoms. And they and that was stuck with me for many, many years. Like I automatically knew like less people would come up to me, and I'm kind of trapped because I was doing like modeling. I was doing, I did some, I did the Jeremy Guard football movie. Like I was the one of guys that you see run up and down the field like in equipment, just to make it look like there was really fast athletes on that field. And so I was doing that kind of stuff. So I was in a real place where people couldn't recognize me because I my face is out there a little bit. But uh the truth was, like, that that's not what was going on with me. I just didn't recognize familiar faces. And so I had a thing that I still do it to this day. If somebody walks up to me and I always say, How are you? How are you doing? Like I never say names because I know I don't really know their name and I don't probably remember who they are. And uh so sometimes that's a little bit more intense than other times. Like when I'm um if I'm using a chamber enough and I'm not stressed about things, it's it's smooth. Like I life is pretty, pretty smooth with that. But it's just when them symptoms kick back in, it's like, my God, like, you know, what did I do to earn this or deserve this? Or did I, you know, did I kick a puppy I don't know about, or some, you know, what did I do? You know? Because it's yeah, I got a matter of fact, some of my teammates have Parkinson's. Um that's one of the symptoms. And like I got to the point where my hand started to shake a little bit, and that was about the time when I found the hyperbaric oxygen. So I'm not quite sure if it if it starved it off or if I wasn't gonna get it. I just don't I don't really know. Like every day is a new day. You just don't know what's gonna show up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 15:10

So you did you have depression as well? You know, because a lot of people with Parkinson's have depression, and and that's one of the reasons too, you you mentioned the the invisible symptoms, because a lot of people with Parkinson's walk around and they have anxiety and depression, they have problems with sleep and fatigue. But people when you look at them, they say, well, that doesn't look like there's anything wrong with you. And I'm sure you get that all the time as well. That what are you what are you talking about? You look you look fine.

SPEAKER_00: 15:34

Yeah, that that's the biggest thing. Like I was seeing doctors for many years. I I thought that this was diabetes. Like that's because it looked like I had low blood sugar. That's what I thought it was. And my doctors were checking me, and they tell me every year, you don't have diabetes. I was like, I have diabetes. I know what low blood sugar looks like. I know a lot of diabetics. This has to be it. And they just kept, they were right though. They kept dismissing it, and but they were right. But eventually when they when they kicked in, like, these symptoms, they look like so many other things. And I've been watching so many people get misdiagnosed. People who had a car crash, had a concussion. You know, now they're diagnosed with who knows what. They're not because they never one thing they don't do, like I was an athlete for me, 11 years old. When I won my last uh U.S. National Championships, I was 37. Well, 36. I turned 37 that summer. I have a lot, had a lot of injuries, pulled hamstrings, things like that. And what one thing that we learned is as soon as you pull a muscle, all that fluid, a lot of fluid is gonna rush there and it's gonna protect the area. You're gonna get a swelling there. And so for 72 hours, we're gonna ice it only. No, better not put heat on it, or you're gonna be sorry. So ice only, and well, no, we're gonna do that. And then after three days, then we can alternate it, then we can do ultrasound, stem. Uh, there's a lot of there's uh they do the acupuncture. There's a lot of things you can do after that. But at the very end, that muscle's almost healed up. But you got scar tissue in there now. And so at the Olympic Training Center, what they do is they give us this white rag or white towel, and you see the little trainer waving it like this, and you automatically like, oh my God, you're just like not today, please. And that rag is for us to bite it because that trainer's gonna take the elbow and they're gonna they're gonna find that knot in my muscle and they're gonna cross-friction it. They're gonna just grind it in there. And, you know, so you see all these grown adults on the training table. We all know, we're flopping around like little kids, you know, because it's painful. But and so now compare that to the concussions. I raced for TUSA for nine years. Not one time did I see a doctor or did they take me to a doctor or any of my teammates. I had a teammate, one teammate, he he drove the sled out the track and was brain dead. He's the only one I ever know who went to the hospital. That's the only guy, you know. And when they went to unplug him, he woke up. He's now a school teacher in Utah, which is uh crazy. But um, yeah, but the one thing about concussions, it's the one injury that they never, ever treat. They just don't give you anything. Tell you don't go back either for me it was a hotel or go back to the Olympic training center and uh don't go to sleep for the first few hours. That's the only thing they ever told us. There was no do this or do that, or this might help, or or they'll might give you some ridiculous uh things to do, like don't look at the light. Well, I'm concussed. I can't look at the light anyway, you know, because you know, it's too bright. You know, your pupils are dilated. So, you know, so they they give you all the things that you don't need, but they never give you anything that you do need. And so I believe that's why when I was in the now that I know the science behind this little thing behind me, I was in that chamber for one hour and it cleared off. I was cloudy for 10 days, I'm sorry, 10 years at that time, and it wiped it off for me for about six days the first time. And I went back the end of that next week, and then it gave me nine days of of no clouds. And so I was in dementia. Like um, every day I woke up, I knew I automatically didn't know the real day. I have a little book, it was a little blue book, I open it up every day, and I wake up and I say, okay, today is Monday, okay, cool. Now I gotta figure out what month we in. So for me, it was always either January or August. Uh like I was stuck in a loop. And another thing that uh makes sense to me now, but not back then, when I first left Team USA, I was 36, or 37 that year. So I moved back to LA right after I left Team USA, and people asked me, How old are you? I automatically said 28. I don't know why I would say 28. I was almost 40. So I will start doing the math. Hey, wait a minute. I'm not 28, wait a minute, hey, you know. So now I look like a pervert telling people that I'm, you know, 12 years younger than I really am. And uh, but that wasn't the case. I wasn't doing it on purpose. And no matter how many times it happened, I did it again, 28. So somehow I think my brain was stuck about the time that I uh first got into that sled because that would make sense.

unknown: 19:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 20:00

My mom has dementia and it she'll do the same thing. You'll say, you know, what what day the or what month is it? And it's always usually August or springtime. And it that was me. But Bench, you know, and I think people do a good job of trying to cover up, you know, when you don't recognize things, especially when you think, oh, people are gonna be judging you because you can't remember. I know one of the things with having Parkinson's for a while is I used to go to the grocery store and I wouldn't need a list. I could, you know, five or eight things, I'd go up and get it and come back. And now it's I mean, just three things, I get up there and I'll if I don't write it down, I get up there and oh, I'll remember it. And then I have to call my wife and say, What was I supposed to get again? Because I can't remember. And phone numbers and things like that. If I don't write write it down, I'm not gonna remember it. And so I and I've had a number of concussions too, so I know what you're saying, and it's it's frustrating. And I know p there's people with Parkinson's that have the same issue that you know you you start to notice these cognitive changes, and you know, it's scary because it's like, well, what's gonna happen to me? Where am I gonna be? So I guess how did you go from did you try other therapies before you tried the um hyperbaric chamber first? Or and or how did you stumble upon it?

SPEAKER_00: 21:16

Well, no, I I didn't try anything else because remember, I'm thinking this thing diabetes. I'm thinking my doctors are lying to me. Like, they're wrong. These doctors are all wrong. Like, I was going state to state. I was checked by different doctors. And now, like uh, ah man, I I I'm thinking back now, I just want to kick myself because you take in the you add in the suicides for my teammates. Like, I didn't want to commit suicide because I was a counselor. I knew what that's gonna, the trauma you leave on your family, so I couldn't do that. But the truth was, I'm I was making deals with God. I was like, God, like, listen, like I I don't want to hurt my family, so I can't end my life, but you can come get me anytime, and it won't be as harsh on them because it would just be my time. So that's kind of the deals that I was making. And the truth you can ask me for, was I depressed? I don't remember being depressed, but I remember praying for death every day. That's the truth of it. But I don't know if I was depressed. Like I just I was cloudy. I was lucky on some days just to be able to live on my own and do things and take care of myself. Like, oh, let me show you this one thing, like, this is it still baffles me. Like where I lived at, my apartment was like here, right? And on the days where I was cloudy, I didn't want to hurt anybody. So I decommissioned my motorcycle and I parked, I parked my car on those days. On those days, I'm not driving anywhere. So what I'd do, I'd try to make myself to go and walk and get a salad or something just to keep moving, just keep moving. And so my apartment's here, there's stores over here. So I'd have to go up here, make a left-hand turn, make a left, cross the street, and the stores are here. Now, some days I ask myself, what if I go the other way? And I couldn't figure it out. I would be in my my apartment having a meltdown, just like, but no, what is over there? I'm just trying to figure out what's over there. Like, why can't I just go that way? The truth was, it's the same thing. I just made two rights instead of two lefts. But I was so far gone, man. Like, I just I couldn't, I couldn't connect the dot for anything. Like, and uh yeah, and I'm seeing doctors and I'm telling them, and like, I don't think anybody's listening. Like, they they're really good about checking our blood, but they're not good about checking the brain. And even if they could check our brains, they wouldn't find, unless you have a massive brain bleed, they're not gonna find it. As a matter of fact, there was one lady, I was speaking to her, uh, this was about a year after I found hyperbaric oxygen, and she was telling me she was frustrated with her doctors because they can't figure out what was wrong with her. And she told me the symptoms, they lined up with concussion people. I was like, wait a minute, were you athlete? She was like, no. And then I found another population of people dealing with this. These are housewives who were, who had been had a lot of domestic violence done to them. So they're now, these housewives are testing positive upon death with uh CTE. And so I was like, Was your husband a violent man? Your ex-husband? I know she had gone through a divorce. She's like, no, nothing like that. And we talked for about maybe 15, 20 minutes. And then she's like, wait a minute. One time she was snowboarding with her with her son, and she fell backwards and hit her head, and she told me her arms did this. I was like, aha, that's your problem right there. I was like, the doctors aren't looking for that. You didn't tell them about that. And even if you did, they can't find that. You know, and so I started sharing the articles that helped diagnose me, which is the Slayhead article and different things like that. But it's uh this stuff is hiding in plain sight from everybody. If you look at the last five or six years of mass shootings, it's connected to people who had head injuries. Well, there's our military accounts for since 2012, they account for 31% of mass shootings now. And uh, you know, they're American heroes. They didn't come back home, they didn't go to war, dedicate their life to do protecting us or serving us or whatever they're doing for us, and then come back and turn to kill us. Like, no, it's a head injury that happened to these guys. They've been around explosions, and you didn't remove that inflammation. How do you remove that inflammation? I believe that's what the answer is, because we know now there's 6,400 suicides for military every year, veterans. But if you look at the CTE people, the athletes, and combine them, there's an additional 5,000 military veterans who um overdose every year. And even if they leave a suicide note, they don't count that as a suicide. But I do. So that's like 11,000 people that we're talking about here. And I was looking at how dark I was and where I was at. All that dude was get in this machine for one hour and they changed my life. And so that's all I've really been trying to do for this last little bit since I know what this is now. And I'm pretty sure it's not mental health. It's not really mental health, it's really just a physical injury that didn't get treated. But it'll look like mental health because you'll look depressed. You'll, you know, you won't know who you are. You don't know who your friends are. Now it looks like dementia, it looks like Alzheimer's. Matter of fact, when I first started feeling better, I went back to the people who sold me the machine. Like, I was like, hey, did you know? Like, I never knew I was in dementia. Like, I didn't know. I I was just there, you know. But I said, I was in dementia, guys. I'm out of that thing now. And I thought I would have recreated the wheel. Like, I thought I created something that was so new, and I just discovered sliced bread with cheese on it. I thought I had just created something new. And this guy went in his desk store and he pulled out this piece of paper and he said, Well, you mean like this? He popped the paper. They've been treating people with Alzheimer's and dementia with this technology for years. But if you don't have the money and the resources, you don't know about it. It's a resource thing. Yeah. If you have cancer, you see the stories all the time. People were in stage four, they were dying, the chemo wasn't working. Then their doctors put them in hyperbaric oxygen, and then now their numbers are normal. Those numbers are cut, they're coming out all the time. They're on, I saw one on TV just the other day uh on uh ESPN. It was the coach from uh University of Um University of Houston, the Cougars, I think it's the Cougars. Well, University of Huguenot, their strength coach, he uh he was in stage four of melanoma. They gave him four to six weeks to live, and they they and they said uh he did everything the doctors asked him, wasn't working, so he said he tries homeopathic or different things like that. And they showed him climbing to this chamber. Now his numbers are normal, but happens all the time. They tell you if you have a stroke, you have blockages up in the brain, get in the get into the machine, it'll reverse those symptoms. Because what it does is it's like it turns your blood into it's your blood's like more like a gas when you're underwater, when you go so deep. Like my machine is one of the lower pressure chambers, so it makes me think I'm about nine feet underwater. And so when you're under there, your blood turns to a gas and get through all the blockages to send blood and oxygen everywhere. And I promise you, like my life changed before that. Like I said, I was praying for death every day. But since this machine's here now, it's uh it's it's a it's a life changer. It's a Jeopardy life changer.

SPEAKER_01: 28:14

Well, c can you tell us a little bit about what it's like to go into the hyperbaric chamber and how what does it feel like when you're in there? And then do you have to uh is there any downtime afterwards? I mean, in the sense that you can do it today, and then do you have to wait several days or can you do it on a daily basis?

SPEAKER_00: 28:33

Okay, well, one of my things is if you give me more than one question, I'm probably gonna answer uh half of that question. So if you give me one question at a time, I'll I'll give you a question. Okay, sure. What's what's it feel like to get inside the chamber? Well, I the best way I can explain-cause I'm in there. Yeah, well, the best way to explain it is when you get on an airplane, you know when you get on an airplane, you're gonna take off, you gotta clear your ears a couple times. Same thing. It's identical. That's it. And then once I get in there, like when I first got this machine, I was so weak. Like if I sat still anywhere, I was falling asleep. And so when I first started, when I got in the chamber, I was I I go in there for 90, 90 minutes, and I just sleep. I sleep while I'm in there because I was too weak to do anything else. Now I can get in there and not go to sleep. I go in there and do puzzles or watch a movie, read a book or whatever. Uh but when I first started, I was so weak I couldn't do any of that. And so yeah, it just feels like you get on the airplane, you go in up, and uh once you once you get to the stabilized pressure, it'll the sound of the machine changes, and it's just nothing. You just sit in there and that's it. And then when you come out, like uh some people do, when I first started, I was doing five sessions a day. But once I stabilized, I cut it back to maybe two a day. I mean, I'm sorry, I was doing five per week. And then when I start to taper off, I do maybe two per week, maybe three. And then sometimes like like right now, like I stop using it for a little bit just to kind of test to see where I'm at. When I get ready to start, need to use it again, I can feel the difference. It's it's uh it's not very fun, put it that way. It's not fun. So how long do you typically stay in the chamber? I usually do 90 minutes per session. Sometime an hour, but I've done 30 minutes before, but usually I do 90 minutes. Does someone need a prescription to be able to do that? The hyperbaric chamber or well, usually when you buy these things, um the doctor will give you a prescription for it, but it depends on which chamber you get. Some chambers you don't need them for. Uh the higher pressure you go, you're definitely gonna need it. But those are the ones you find in the hospitals for people who have burn victims and people who have um bed sores and wounds that won't heal. Like it's there's 14 things that insurance will pay for that you you can use these things in hospitals for. But but those are those uh chambers are three, what they call three atmospheres. Mine is a 1.4. You can you could even buy them up to 2.0 if you're gonna have them in your home. But once you go past 2.0, now it's considered a medical grade machine. So, and then the price also jumps up there. Like my machine here, this one when I bought it was around 20 grand. But the ones that I want to do now for this uh facility I want to open, they're gonna run me 50 to 100 grand each, depending on which ones that I I get. But yeah, they they can be really pricey. And so if you need two sessions a day for 30 days starting out, that's what's kind of uh suggested. Like a veterans can't afford that. That's you know, it'll cost you about 12 grand for that first month. And uh, if you don't have the money for it, like you're probably gonna choose rent and food other than this machine, especially if you don't know the machine's gonna work for you. You know, you don't you don't know much about it. You just you h you know you got this this this I guess wish and these prayers maybe, but you don't really know what's gonna happen until you get in there. So is it covered by insurance at all or not? It is not. And that's the biggest problem. There's a company that reached out to me, an agency, called treatnown.org. They help our military veterans. They understand what this, how this reverses their symptoms. And so there's an organization they're out there trying right now trying to get the legislation passed where insurance would have to cover this thing. And so they've asked me to be one of the spokespeople on it. And so I'm I'm whatever I can do to help, I'm throwing it at it. Like everything that I'm telling you today, like I help a lot of people find these machines in their communities, and I just really try to help people. I'm not here to like I don't charge for anything that I do. I help people just kind of get some recovery, you know. Sometimes I can help them find chambers and areas for free. Sometimes I can we can find them discounted, but more so it's usually gonna cost them about 200 bucks an hour in most places if you don't have those relationships. Like I said, most people can't they can't put 12,000 down for, you know. It just our our veterans are they're struggling right now. They can't afford that bill. And so I'm just trying to do something a little bit different to help these guys, and and hopefully it'll cut back on our mass shooting rate, because our mass shooting rate, I don't know if anybody's paying attention, but it's directly tied to CTE in many cases, which is very scary. Very, very scary.

SPEAKER_01: 32:55

Aaron Powell Is there any clinical studies that that are going on that people could participate in to use that for either CTE or maybe um other neurological problems, do you know?

SPEAKER_00: 33:07

Well, these things have been around since they've been around since the 1800s. And so those studies are already there, they've been done, they're out there. People choose what they want to choose because they don't want to fund these things. It's really and when I first started this journey, people said that to me, and I was like, conspiracy theory. But I quickly learned, like, uh, no, they were right. Because actually the people who were fighting them right now, fighting insurance on uh having them paid for, have reached out to me personally asking me to help. So um, no, yeah, they were right. Yeah, as a matter of fact, there was an article that came out this time last year, and um, it was talking about our fighter pilots. They have the same symptoms as the bobsledders and the football players. It's our fighter pilots, our military people. So I took that article and I shared it with a with a judge and some lawyers, and then that article was quickly screwed from the internet. Now I have New York Times, they sent me a personal link where I can share it now. But like, they're doing everything they can to keep this information from coming out. There was a documentary uh team from Hollywood that wanted to do a story on me uh and my journey, and uh eventually they told me there's some really big people out here who's fighting to keep this information from coming out. They don't really want to see it. You know, and what's the Olympics are a lot of money, first of all. And I'm not going against the military either, either. I'm just really wanting to help the veterans. Like I'm not saying military stop, but you no, I'm not, you know, uh it's none of my business how you got this way, but I just want to help you come out of it so you don't wonder where my teammates were. Like I'll uh it's not like I was stronger than my teammates. I wasn't, you know. I I was like I said, I was on that floor praying for death every day and uh a few times a day, but I was one of the lucky ones to find something. You know, I survived it, and I'm surviving it. It's it's it's still a struggle, don't get me wrong. It's not like I got in that chamber and now I'm better forever. Like some people get that permanent relief. I I haven't received the permanent relief, but I I have enough to keep me stable. Well, the good thing is you're trying to help other people too.

SPEAKER_01: 35:12

It's you've you've found something that's helped you, and then you want to try to pay it forward and help other people. And I think that that's a great thing. It shows that it shows too that you know you can be at your deepest part of despair and still come through the other side and and use what you've learned to help other people. So how's your GoFundMe page going?

SPEAKER_00: 35:34

Man, uh well, I'm officially a not-for-profit. So my GoFundMe is it's moving really slow. It's uh it's still there. And I I guess I'm not doing the best job of promoting that thing either. I got I gotta do better with promoting that thing. And um, but uh, but I'm officially not for profit. Because that see, what happened is like when I when I let the world know what I was doing, there was a lot of investors coming to me. And they was like, hey, I want to invest, I know what you're doing, it's a great idea, but I can't take their money because I had to give them a return on their money, which means I'm gonna have to charge the clients. And I told them, I said, guys, you know what I'm doing? You can go and do what I'm doing over there because I'm not charging our guys. I know where I was at, and when I finally got some help, I know what that felt like. I'm not gonna turn that down for some money, man. Like you can no, you you guys gotta do better. So yeah, my thing is I have to self-fund this thing. Right now, I just have the one chamber, which is behind me, but it's not geared for warrior for what I'm about to do to it. So I gotta get the commercial ones made that are made out of metal. Yeah. And so we can just go make a make a real run at this thing. Like there's a company right now that wants to build one for me, and it holds six people. Well, if that's the only chamber I have and it holds six people, and if I'm open eight hours a day, that's 48 people can get in that chamber a day. There's 48 treatments that can go through there. And actually, I can't even say the word treatment because I'll get in trouble. I guess I have to say therapy only. It's a therapy. And so that's what I'm really trying to do. Like, I knew what it did to me for that first hour, but I have enough things in place so where I can fix it. I want to fix it where they can if they need 30 days of two a day, we can handle that not a problem. And we don't want to hit their pocketbooks. That's the goal, it's not to take it from the families. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 37:26

Yeah. So how would you based on your experience with with CTE, what would you tell people with Parkinson's that are struggling and thinking that there there's nothing I can do to help you get over the challenges?

SPEAKER_00: 37:41

Well, the studies are out there. If you have Parkinson's, I would say find, you know, I'm not a doctor, guys. Please do your own homework and do your research. I am not a doctor, but you gotta find the people who are actually getting help, who are doing things that aren't aren't the usual things. I did the usual thing. I did exactly what the doctors told me to do or told me not to do, and they left us to die on the floor. And I'm with the U.S. Olympic team. Like, that's who you know I spent almost a decade with. And so if we can't get help, trust me, most of you guys, I know you're out there struggling just like we are. And it's disgusting that this stuff is here. I would like for me, all I gotta do, once I own the equipment, all I gotta do is turn the switch on, turn lights on, let people come in, we'll sign them up and put them in there. It's just that simple. It's not like I gotta do maintenance, I gotta put oil and change it, put some gas. No, it's none of that. Uh it's mine. I can help who I want to help with it, and that's what we're gonna do. It's that simple. And it's really sad that these things are around, but people aren't, can't afford to use them. But I tell you, it's only biting us in the in the butt. If you listen to this thing, guys, I challenge you. Matter of fact, go to my TikTok channel. If you look at my TikTok channel, it's called One Man with a Chamber. I was wearing, matter of fact, I was wearing this shirt up underneath. It was a team USA shirt. About two months ago, there was a gentleman, he, I won't call him a gentleman or not, but please forgive me on that. But uh he went to the NFL office. He said he had CTE, he went there to kill some of the NFL people, and he left a CTE suicide note. And so people said he he never he only played high school football. How could he have CTE? Well, they did the research and it came out. He was right, he had CTE. But he did, he killed himself. He did kill himself, and he killed a lot of other people unnecessarily. And then after that happened, my social media was going crazy, my phone was going crazy. And so I put a video out that day, and like I said, I'm wearing a red team USA shirt, and I look like a bum guy, so don't judge me. I was just walking and talking. And so I'm telling people like, I we see our athletes doing this stuff, but these are not the people I fear. The people I fear are our military veterans coming back because they have the same condition. In many cases, it's called PTSD, but when they die and they check their brain, they're finding CT. GTE, there's a such a violence in our brain. It's about it's about death. You fixated on death. Everybody I spoke to, including myself, it was the same thing. You fixated on death. Ending this, not being here. And I even know people who said they they want to murder other people. And that's what's really shocked. These are people that I know. And uh and it's just like it's just man, I'm sorry I lost my train of thought there once I got that far. But it's um it's horrible stuff. And these guys all need help. And if I can get help and it can wipe it off of me after nine years of taking those, you know, six trips a day sometime in the Bob said track. Well, we know now, like the dangers on that track was happening to me every time we went down that track. That's why in my community is so devastated from the damage. That's why it bothers me so much because I filed a class action to make them warn the new generation, and they just still are refusing to warn these guys. Like, you have to warn these kids so they don't wind up like me. You can tell them now they can have a concussion, but what they don't know is in about five years, you're gonna start to forget the people you love. You know, you're not gonna know what day it is. That's these are my symptoms. You don't know what month you're in. You you can't walk around the corner in your in your neighborhood without getting lost. Like, that's what I was dealing with, you know, and I don't think about anybody those children should have to deal with that if we know what's causing it. You know, I asked the judge one day, I was like, Your Honor, I was like, people are dying. There's a death trail here. People are dying. I said, if they know what's going on, they don't want to warn them. Like, aren't they responsible for these deaths? That that's the way I look at it. But some people like business as usual, like, like next man up, like they don't care that you die or you get sick. They're gonna promote the next athlete. There's always a thousand athletes waiting for your job in America for Olympic stuff. But if they're not warning them that, you know, you you do this sport, you're gonna pay for it. And that's just really the truth of it.

SPEAKER_01: 42:03

Yeah, now I guess the sad part is is you know, people that you know are are next in line or waiting in line, sometimes they're told to risk and they think, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because when you see other people, people say, Oh, you don't look like you have a problem. And you know, I hear a lot with Parkinson's, well, you don't look like you have Parkinson's, and it's it's like, well, you're not with me every day. The same with you. And so I think what ends up happening is then it's like, well, I but they don't look any different, so they're just telling me this and and away. And but it's as you get older, you you start to realize, oh, geez, I really did a toll on my body that that I'm having to pay for now. And well, there's actually I'm sorry, I didn't cut you off there.

SPEAKER_00: 42:45

No, no, I was gonna say there's many athletes like it's the athletes that are still competing that helped me shed the light on this. There was like, we got this one girl, she said, her name is Elena Myers. She's won all most of the Olympic medals for the women's side since like 2007 or something. She's really good. And she would in an interview, she said she had some some concussions on her. She wasn't apologizing to her people around her because she wasn't acting like herself. So I'm reading be I'm reading between the um lines because I'm I'm thinking, oh, wait a minute. She was acting out? Concussion? And now I'm starting to like put it together. I said, I bet you that's that CTE stuff. Still me, not thinking it's me. I'm thinking I still got diabetes, but she's got park. I mean, she's probably got the CTE, but not uh I'm watching my other teammates kill himself. I'm thinking my my teammate, Stephen Holcomb, he's won every Olympic medal for the man since 2003. It's him. He's won all the medals. He killed himself at the Olympic Training Center. Like, like, no, these people, like, I promise you, they're not sharing this information. They're not sharing it. They might find out about it later, but they're not sharing it. Matter of fact, a lot of athletes, some of them called me. They was like, hey, I didn't know you filed a court case for us. Like, yeah. I'm just like, aren't you still racist? Like, yeah. She said, they didn't tell us anything about it. So even the athletes are still competing, they're not warning, they still aren't warning them, or even warning them about the lawsuit. You know, I don't know, I don't know what to say. Like, I I could I could I did all I can do. And at this point, like uh my last four court sessions, my defense lawyers, well my my lawyers are now standing with the defense team. They're helping those guys. There's an offer on the table, it's$2.1 million. It's public record, I don't mind saying it. The$2.1 million, I'm the lead plaintiff. All the money goes toward um lawyers and um evaluating athletes only. No treatment. Absolutely no treatment. Which they promised me treatment is what we were fighting for. So I'm the lone person in the court right now fighting against the lawyers that I hired and the lawyers who we were fighting against. And I really shouldn't be be the one doing it because like um I'm not, first of all, I'm not a lawyer. And at the end of the day, I'm still a CTE victim. I have days where I'm a little cloudy. I have some days where I just don't feel the best. Like I'm not the one who should be representing all these athletes. I represent over 700 athletes, I believe, right now. It was a lot more. I think it was closer to 900. But I think it'll be more like 1,200 to 1400 by the time we get done. But with the offer they put on the table, I don't know, I don't know anybody who would do it. Like, I wouldn't take my child to a doctor who wouldn't treat them. Like in that case, you're just like a lab rat. Like, what would be the point of that? So But yeah, that's that's what we're all dealing with right now. And um, so I'm just I'm gonna continue to advocate and uh help as many as I can help. And uh that's all that I can do.

SPEAKER_01: 45:43

Yeah, I want to thank you for sharing your story today. I mean, it's fascinating, and that's why I wanted to have you on too. There's parallels for people with with Parkinson's that not the exact same, but the same kind of sh struggles with and you know, people look at them and say, Well, you you have invisible symptoms, and the same is going on with you. But I the thing that I really want to commend you on is all the work you're you're doing to take what happened to you and do good things with it and help other people, the veterans and and the other athletes. So I want to thank you for sharing your story today and being on the program. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00: 46:20

Well, your background was was was was your background? You say was it football?

SPEAKER_01: 46:25

Yeah, I played football, high school and college football. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 46:28

Where do you think that Parkinson came from?

SPEAKER_01: 46:30

Yeah, I know that's one of the things that uh I asked the doctors, and I they said they're still doing research on whether Parkinson's is caused by head trauma and and because I had a number of concussions as well. And and uh now I'm like I said, I gave you the example about going to the grocery store forgetting and I'm not good with names. Uh you know, I'm I'm good at remembering faces, but I can't remember names very well. And so I'm struggling with a lot of the things that like you said you go through and it it gets frustrating.

SPEAKER_00: 46:59

Well, I can tell you this one thing when it comes to concussions, like there's the big ones we get. Like the big ones, when I got a real big one, like I said, I went back to the hotel and I couldn't walk straight for a week. I'm stuck in the bed. You know, you can't do much. But it's some little ones. It's a pro when you're in practice and uh you're taking those bumps against the head, those are the ones that's doing the most damage. And so from a football standpoint, I would probably suggest or assume that it probably for you, it probably came from that. Especially you played you played at college too. Mm-hmm. Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 47:31

Wow, what'd you play at? At uh Lockhaven University in Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_00: 47:35

Oh, Lockhaven, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 47:37

Division II school.

SPEAKER_00: 47:38

So yeah, you uh that's a very good chance. But I'll tell you this, when I got to the point where my hands were starting to shake, I I don't exactly I didn't really do a good job always logging everything. Some things I did, some things I didn't. I'm not sure if that chamber really removed that from me or not. But if I were you, I would um I would check into it. Because you gotta think about it, how many times well, you're an athlete, you know. You you get them injuries, you got a treatment plan, but I guarantee you never got one for your concussions or even from playing football. I think anybody who had those head things going on, like football, the military, they should automatically do hyperbaric. Oh, matter of fact, this is how I know this thing is really real. I was interviewed by some the UK veterans, this is about two months ago, and they told me they can't really uh deep-sea dive in the UK. It's it's against all the rules or something, so they have to go to some place in the Bahamas. He said, But what they do is they go down there and they go down really far, he said, and he stayed down there for an extremely long time. He said, and when they come back up, they're just like healed. They don't know why. And they don't they think it's maybe the water or like, no. Because whenever I get in this chamber right here, every time I get in there once, it's called a dive. It's simulating what what they're doing naturally, which is going down in the ocean, going down far enough, which makes your blood like a gas. Now we get through all the blockages. And it's the same thing. Matter of fact, they didn't even know. They had no idea. And as they were telling me, I was getting goosebumps. I was just letting them finish their story. I was like, whoa. I was waiting to get to the punchline so I can just give them the the other part, the other side of that thing. But I'm learning every day because there's so many people out here. We're starting to talk now. We're talking and we're starting to share our stories. And I think it's gonna save a lot of lives. But I would suggest you find one in your community. Yeah, I'm gonna look, I'm definitely gonna check into it. Yeah, but don't look at the ones for the hospital. You don't need that. You just need one in a wellness center or chiropractice office. Look for, like, type in hyperbaric oxygen near me or H B O T near me, and you'll see them pop up. They're they're hidden in your communities. They're they're everywhere. There's they're usually around. Uh but a lot of times when you have them in those centers like that, they do charge a premium. Um, like for me, like I said, I've been almost 600 hours in, and uh man, but I've had this thing since 2022. And uh if I had to pay for all 600 of those hours, oh my god, like it's no way I I couldn't have done it. It's no way. So buying it was was the best thing I could have ever done.

SPEAKER_01: 50:08

Well, thanks again. I really appreciate you being on, and and I'm gonna follow your story and and continue to promote. And uh best of luck to you. And uh again, thanks for helping the the veterans and the athletes. I mean, that's a great thing you're doing.

SPEAKER_00: 50:22

So Well, I'm gonna be open to the public. That's the goal, is to open to the public. We're gonna we're gonna keep grind grinding and doing everything that we can. I appreciate you having me.

SPEAKER_01: 50:31

Well, thanks. Have a great day.

SPEAKER_00: 50:32

Thank you. Yeah, you too.