Marla Miller: 0:35

Welcome to Open Minded Healing. Today we'll be diving into the topic of traumatic brain injuries and how the use of the hyperbaric oxygen chamber helped one man regain his life. My guest today, William Persson, was a bobsledder for Teen USA for nine years and later began suffering from depression, confusion, and brain fog. He will be sharing how these symptoms affected his health and relationships and how he found healing, as well as why he is now so passionate about educating and helping others, particularly athletes and military vets. Welcome, William.

William Person: 1:16

Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me. By the way, what I'm doing now, I started out with just athletes and then it evolved to the military as well. But it's so many more people out here who's all suffering from this stuff, you know, all the way down to the housewife who had domestic violence done to her. And, you know, now she has the same symptom.

Marla Miller: 1:35

Yeah, we'll definitely get into all the different types of situations that create this traumatic brain injury and how this can be helpful to those people as well.

William Person: 1:45

Absolutely.

Marla Miller: 1:46

Before we dive into this heavy topic, I do want to ask you as far as being a bobsledder on Team USA, how did you get into that sport in the first place? What drew you to that?

William Person: 2:00

Well, I was a uh track and field athlete. And my track and field career was ending. I was about about 27 years old, and an opportunity came up for me to try out. There was a tryout in Salt Lake City for the 2002 Winter Olympics. And they called me, and I was thinking, like, you know, I might be able to pick up an extra sponsor from my last year track and field because I knew NBC was covering that tryout. So I went to try out, and uh, that's where it all started. I set a new record on a tryout. It was live on, well, it wasn't live TV, but it was a show called NBC Go for the Gold. So this guy offered me a crap load of money to race on his team. And the truth was, he tricked me. He didn't have the money, he didn't have any sponsors. And by the time I realized that, um, some of the other bigger teams in the country picked me up. And nine years later, I was still racing.

Marla Miller: 2:50

Wow. Yeah, it was meant to be scam or not, I guess. It was meant to be that you found your way onto the bobsled team.

William Person: 2:58

I wouldn't say he was scamming me, but he he was hoping to find the money. And it's a hard hustle to find sponsors and donors when you don't have like he didn't have any Olympic medals. Matter of fact, he didn't make it, so you know, he didn't have a good chance of making it. Even his equipment was old and outdated. Matter of fact, no matter how fast I pushed this guy, the women's teams were beating us to the bottom of that hill. So, you know, we weren't gonna do well as a team. Yeah.

Marla Miller: 3:24

Oh, interesting.

William Person: 3:25

That's the truth of it. Yeah.

Marla Miller: 3:27

So the track and field, I guess the strength from that and the speed really translates to bobsledding.

William Person: 3:35

Yeah, for every tenth of a lead you get at the start, it's like three tenths at the bottom of the track. It picks up speed. As long as you're not hitting the walls and slowing the sled down. So win that sport, you have to have a great start.

Marla Miller: 3:48

Yeah, that makes sense. So you got onto the bobsled team, and then, like you said, you were there for nine years. What made you finish that career up? Was it just time? Was it age? How do you end that career?

William Person: 4:03

Well, oh man, I don't usually talk about it too often because when I left the sport, I left with my tail between my legs pretty much. That's the truth of it. My first week for the bobsled team, when I got to Lake Placid, this guy who worked there, he told me, hey, Will, it's the good old boy system here, but it's getting better. And I didn't really believe him, to be honest. Matter of fact, my girlfriend at the time, she was competing for the German Olympic team. She's a track and field athlete. So I traveled with the Germans and they treated me like family. So to believe that racism was still going on on my Olympic team in America, like, no way, that's impossible. But actually, they just got audited in 2022. The complaints that I made to the USOC about the racism that they never really addressed, this outside agency who did the audit, it actually in writing, it says good old boy system in there now. There was an update to the audit that came out about six months ago. And it once again still mentions the good old boy system. I can provide it to if you want to see it. So, like anything I tell you, there's receipts for, like, I won't just give you some blanket word statement. But when I left the sport, I was so embarrassed of how they treated me. For example, there was a time in the 2003 World Championships, I was pushed to Stephen Holcomb. He was the only athlete who won Olympic medals for America since 2003. So I pushed him in his first world championships. And so the next year, I'm the number one or number two breakman in the country. So when it comes time for training camp in a few months, the Olympic team wouldn't fund me to go to camp. So I funded myself up there. And when I get there, we have won these cell phones from Verizon, uh, national team phones and the world championships just the year before. So we all had the same phone number, just maybe one digit off. So one day I'm in Canada. I pay for myself to get there. This athlete comes to me. He said, Hey, Coach Tuffy says he wants me to tell you that when the Federation comes to Canada, they're gonna pick up the TAD and you won't have a place to stay. You have to find somewhere else to stay. He said, I don't know why he's telling me to tell you this. I don't understand, but I said, Okay, so I called the coach from my phone, and he didn't answer. I called him a couple more times, he didn't answer. Uh, a few days go by. I get the same message from the same guy again. So I called the coach from my phone, and he didn't answer. I use the other guy's phone. He picks up on the first ring. And I said, hey Tuffy, what's going on? And um, he told me, he said, Oh, each driver only gets one push athlete funded. I said, Tuffy, I've been here for a few weeks now, so is that the story you're sticking to? He started to kind of stutter a little bit and then he said, I'll see what I can do. Fast forward a couple weeks. Federation comes up to Canada. They move us to a different hotel, they give me a room. I got a new roommate. I recognized that guy from the year before. He was like the track janitor. He was the one who like clinged the sleds off and he clinged the track to make sure that the ice was nice for us. Nice guy, real nice guy. I asked him, I said, Was your ticket expensive to get here? And he said the weirdest thing to me. He says, No. He said, I went to the training camp. I finished last. And then I got injured, and I was sitting around at the training center just trying to heal up. And Tuffy came to me and asked me if I wanted to go to Canada. He would pay for it. And I went, Oh my God. So those are the kind of things that I dealt with.

Marla Miller: 7:19

What do you mean? So he paid for him to go so you'd have a roommate?

William Person: 7:23

No. They were still funding athletes to go there. Athletes who weren't proven. I was proven world championship athlete, top 10 world-ranked, and these guys were just starting out.

Marla Miller: 7:33

So was he white?

William Person: 7:35

Yeah, he's a white guy. Yeah.

Marla Miller: 7:36

Okay.

William Person: 7:37

Yeah. Yeah.

Marla Miller: 7:37

All right.

William Person: 7:38

I probably forgot to mention that part. Yes. Yeah.

Marla Miller: 7:40

That's all coming together now.

William Person: 7:42

Sometimes I was the only black guy on the team. I just assume everybody knew that. I apologize, but yeah.

Marla Miller: 7:47

No, that's, I mean, it's terrible. I totally believe all that.

William Person: 7:52

It's in writing with the USLC. It's in, you know.

Marla Miller: 7:54

Yeah, it's terrible. It's terrible. When are we going to get it beyond that? I don't know.

William Person: 8:00

Well, the the next year when I got to camp, um, some of the same thing happened. On day number one, I was the fastest push athlete. On day number two, I was the fastest push athlete. On day three, they kicked me out in Canada. It was like, they made me practice with the girls after that. They didn't want me pushing around the other guys because they didn't want my times. And it was just, man, like some of these things, like you tell people that, they're like, that guy is lying. The truth is, my condition with CTE got so bad. Like a few years ago, I could barely talk. Like I was struggling with words and sentences. And this guy had to call me and remind me of what the bobsled team did to me. I didn't remember. I just really forgot because I buried it. I really buried that stuff. Yeah.

Marla Miller: 8:42

But you lasted nine years through all of that.

William Person: 8:47

Well, I I was going around speaking to schools, adults, you know, and I went to St. Louis, my hometown, and I accepted a I forgot if it was a proclamation or resolution from the politicians. And when they gave it to me, like all these adults were older adults, was like, hey, I didn't know we can do this. And I had just announced my retirement that day in 2003. They didn't know they could do what like Bob Sledding and these other things that most black athletes, you know, we stuck with the same sports, it's football, basketball, track and field, you know. I was doing something that was different. And so I stuck around for like seven more years because I knew about the racism I was dealing with. And I said, I don't want anybody coming behind me. If I'm going to be inspiring people to go up there because I'm doing it, then I want to at least change the culture before I leave. And so that's why I stuck around. And sometimes I'm kicking myself because if I had left when I said I wanted to leave, I wouldn't probably be dealing with these issues right now. And so that's a tough pill to swallow. Yeah.

Marla Miller: 9:49

Yeah, you never know. I feel like the world is so complex and our purpose here, because if you had left, you wouldn't now be educating athletes and helping vets. And maybe that is very purposeful. Well, let's get into that. So you do the bobsledding all those years. When did these symptoms start appearing and what were they exactly?

William Person: 10:14

Well, some of them started while I was still racing. The first one that I can really remember was like I'd had these panic attacks sometime. And in my background, I was actually mental health. I owned a youth treatment facility when I started Bob Send, it was open for two years at that time. And so I wasn't the guy who gets anxiety or panics, or matter of fact, if there was a riot in youth corrections, I'm the guy that went in and put the riot out, you know. And so I was always that real mild guy, just like that. But all of a sudden, I started having these panic attacks. And they were simple. Like I didn't know where I was at. And so I had to hit the light switch and look around the room. And the best way to explain it is like when you're in Europe, they have these old creepy pictures on the wall, like the eyes following you. You know, and then if I see white painted cinder bricks, I know I'm at the Olympic Training Center. But I rationalized it. I was like, you know what? I travel so much, I represent my country. This is where I always wanted to be at, and that's why I don't know where I'm at. But it wasn't the truth. And then the next one, something that really sticks out is I hadn't seen my friends in a while. And so I was in Salt Lake City and we went to go shoot pool. And one of my buddies, like, hey man, that's uh there's your ex-girlfriend coming in. And I looked at, I was like, hey, no, that's a pretty girl, but I don't know her. And then she runs over and jumps in my arms. And then I just kind of catch her and I'm like, uh-oh. So the truth was, I knew her. I have been dating her, but I was not recognizing familiar faces anymore. Not all the time, but I can't even pinpoint when and where. That's scary. You know that was feel.

Marla Miller: 11:46

Wow.

William Person: 11:47

Well, once again, I rationalize it. I'm an athlete. All the ladies love the athletes because I have muscles. You know, I just, you know, your mind just tries to tell you all the things that you want to hear. That's just what I was doing. I couldn't connect the dots. And I still had that problem to this day. So I never say names. I say, How are you doing? You know, hey you, you know, I started doing that, man. And then the next one is the is one I still kind of deal with today, is every day I wake up, I already know I probably don't know the real day. So I always kept a little daily planner next to my bed. And so every day I wake up, I have to figure out, well, okay, okay, today is Monday. Okay, now what month is it? I was stuck in this little loop where I think it's always January or August. Now, since I've been getting a hyper treatment, like some of that stuff is kind of resolved. But if I stop using it, that's actually my red flag because I'll start asking people, okay, what's today? And I'm like, okay, I'm asking because I need to get back in that chamber and get some more therapy in. But it's actually one of the things that kind of helped me now. I've learned how to maneuver with it.

Marla Miller: 12:47

Well, were there other symptoms that surfaced? And what about your relationships? Was someone reflecting back to you what they were seeing? When you say relationships, do you mean Well, were you dating someone at the time?

William Person: 13:01

Yeah, I was dating people during the time when it started.

Marla Miller: 13:04

Or like people that were close to you. I mean, did someone in your family or a close friend was anyone bringing up concerns because they were noticing certain symptoms?

William Person: 13:14

Not until many years later. I have been trying to tell people I was having problems. But if you tell most people, oh yeah, I go in the room and I can't remember while I'm in there, most people say, Oh, I do that too. You know, so they'll kind of help minimize it a little bit. But I'm saying, no, because you don't have migraines like I have. You don't have vertical kicking in randomly. And those things only kicked in after my first real bad concussion. And so, like, that's the biggest thing is think it's kind of invisible. It's like, it's because I thought it was diabetes, really, because I couldn't get out of the bed. And so, what I started to do every night before I went to sleep, I'll put a thermos of coffee or uh Coca-Cola or Mountain Dew on my nightstand or next to my bed somewhere. So when it's time to kind of wake up, I can get it, take a sip, and then I can start my day. And so to me, that looked like low blood sugar. So I assumed that um I was becoming diabetic. And so doctors kept testing me and telling me, nope. So some years I'll go in, I'm like, okay, and I can I just please get my insulin this year so I can. I'm cloudy. It's got to be low blood sugar. But eventually when I figured out what it was, it was kind of the worst case scenario. Yeah, it definitely wasn't diabetes.

Marla Miller: 14:26

So let's talk about the traumatic brain injury. What was causing your traumatic brain injury? What incidents?

William Person: 14:35

Well, from what I know about the sport now, you know, we crash, so we get concussions. So that happens. Sometimes we don't crash, we hit our heads on the side of the sled. Some of the tracks are extra violent. Like there's one in Altenburg, Germany. It's like you're almost totally inverted upside down, coming off of a turn. And so when it comes back, it'll snatch your head. And like I literally cracked the helmet one time in a World Cup race, and we didn't even crash that time. I just cracked the helmet just from the pressure and that whip effect. And then also, what I learned now, there's an article that came out from the New York Times, and it's called Sled Head. And in that article, it mentioned that we were pulling like 84.5 G's. There was there were spikes. But they always told us we're only pulling five G's, and the fighter pilots only pull six, and the space shuttle only does three. So if we have spikes of 84.5, it would explain why most of our athletes are struggling right now. And also, oh, you we used to do these things where we take VIP people down the track, and once we took fighter pilots, and we thought it was pretty cool because they're the only ones who know what our G-forces feel like. Um, and on that day, it always sticks out to me because on that day I took about seven bobsled rides, and they only took one, and it was a pretty smooth ride. And when they got out of the sled, they were kind of shook up, and it didn't make sense to me. How could they be shook up? These are the best of dealing with uh G-forces, they are trained, you know. And uh so this article comes out, written by the New York Times, they have the exact same issues as us, identical, and it makes sense. So I'm believing it's the G-forces that's getting us, as much as the concussions. And then the other part, the factor to that is if you ever go to a lake early in the morning and the water's really calm, look like a piece of glass. See, like on Olympic Day, World Championship Day, Olympic trial day, hopefully that ice is smooth like that. But sometimes it's not. There's like some ripples in there. And so when you run those metal blades across that ripple, like your teeth will chatter, like you know, you're when you're going across it, it's like it's uh you know, and so it's equivalent to like shaking baby syndrome, is what has been explained to me. So it's kind of the perfect storm. From what I understand, it's the only sport you can probably pick up CTE in one season.

Marla Miller: 16:59

What does CTE maybe tell people?

William Person: 17:02

Well, I can't pronounce it. Some words I can't say, some simple words, and this was not a simple word, but the best way to explain it if you look at all the NFL players that have been committing suicide, and once they check their blames, they they have CTE, and what it is, they said it's from repetitive head injuries. And I I think they might be a little bit wrong on that. Because I met the housewife who fell down and hit her hair one time, and she has the identical issues as us. Doctors can't figure it out, but I'm like, hey, wait a minute.

Marla Miller: 17:31

I just found it so chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

William Person: 17:35

Yeah. Some days it rolls off my tongue, but like every so often I'll take time away from hyperbarics because they said I I can sleep in this thing every day, all day, but I don't want to take their word for it. So I try to take breaks away from it and just to see where I'm at, my progress. And I'm just kind of coming back from that. Because some people get permanent relief when they do it. And for me, 30 days without it, and I start to kind of go backwards a little bit. But I don't complain. Like I said, I know what to do.

Marla Miller: 18:01

Let's talk about. I think you had depression as well, right?

William Person: 18:06

I I did, but I didn't know. I was on the floor every day begging for death. I mean, it was so bad that sometimes like I had an uncle that he went in one time and the doctor said, Hey, are you in pain? And he's like, No. Find out he was in stage four of pancreatic cancer. And he was gone quick. And so there was some times where I was like, God, just please you can give me that one because it'll be quick. Like, you know, I was praying for death any way you do to get me out of here because the symptoms are awful. You know, every day I wake up, I don't know my days, I don't know the months, I don't know where I'm at. I'm getting lost in my own community, and now my teammates are killing themselves. And a rational mind would have been able to connect those dots. I could not connect those dots.

Marla Miller: 18:50

You just thought what? Instead of that you're depressed, what were you thinking?

William Person: 18:56

Nothing. You're numb over there. Your focus is death. And I believe that's why all these people are taking their life. You're so focused. It's like a loop. It's like you don't have to live like this, you can go now. But I was a counselor, and so I know you leave that trauma for your family. And I couldn't do that. And so I just kept talking to God, like, please just come get me. It's my time. This won't hurt my family. If you come get me, it will just be my time. You know, and that's the kind of mind state that I was in. But I didn't know I was depressed. I didn't know it was head injury related. I just thought I had diabetes or something. And it didn't make sense because I've always been a clean eater. Yeah.

Marla Miller: 19:33

What was that wake-up moment where you did understand more what was going on?

William Person: 19:41

Well, one of the things that I did in between while I was still running track, I was doing football movies like Jerry Maguire that played five different characters. You'll see me running up and down the field, just making it look like athletes run fast. And because there was one real professional athletes out there.

Marla Miller: 19:55

Oh, you were actually in that movie, you're saying?

William Person: 19:57

Yes, yes.

Marla Miller: 19:58

Out on the field. Oh, wow.

William Person: 20:00

Yeah. And so I was doing stuff like that. So one of my teammates, when I left Team USA, I moved back to Los Angeles, and he wanted to be a writer. So he was calling me with these crazy stories I'd never heard before. I was like, that'll be a great one. And I was showing him how to put it in writers' format, you know, those type of things. And these were random phone calls. And the last time he called me, he was speaking this gibberish. And I didn't know what he was saying. And uh he got so frustrated with me, he hung up the phone. And um every day I told myself, I gotta help this guy, I gotta help him. And I didn't do anything. Other than just think about it, I guess. And eventually I got the word that he went to his family's factory and he hung himself. And then uh the guilt from that just crushed me, you know. And then my driver had just killed himself at the Olympic Training Center like two years before that, Stephen Holcomb. And I still didn't connect the dots. But I'm going through what I'm going through. And so I was in dementia, but I didn't really know I was in dementia. I just knew I was in trouble. So I found a little lake house near my family in the Midwest. So I went back there and I uh I bought the house. So now I'm exhausted my resources. But this is my death house. I'm going there. I know this is where I'm going to die. I'm not going to get lost here. Far as I can go was 100 yards to the backyard to the lake to fish or cut the grass. That's all I can do out there. And so I'm sitting over there. And uh at the time I had met a young lady right before I left Los Angeles. And she will come see me sometime. I will come back to LA to see her. And while I was in LA one time, like, best way to put it, I don't mean to just be disrespectful, ladies. Don't get mad at me if you're listening to this. But they have a loving family. So they're on the phone every day, especially during COVID. And they talk so loud, the noises was killing me. The noise. I just couldn't deal with the noise. And so I told my girlfriend, I said, we might have to split up. I'm going back to Lake House. I need some peace and quiet. So I go back there. And at that time, the New York Times article came out called Sled Head. And it was talking about my teammates, the symptoms they had before they committed suicide. And they didn't even talk about all the suicides, but some of them have strokes and Parkinson's. We have a whole gamut of different illnesses that really relate directly to CTE. It's identical stuff. And so I'm over and I'm reading this article. And I literally get on my knees and I thank God that all the symptoms miss me. That's how I still couldn't connect the dots. And this article was literally talking about me and my peers. And I still didn't connect the dots. And so I thank God all these things missed me. I sent the article to my girlfriend, and she sent it back, and some things were circled. And first thing I saw was noise sensitivity. And then I just like went, oh, that's what I said too. Like, oh, then I went down that list. I think I checked every box except Parkinson's at that time. And then this thing had a name because right after that, my friend's autopsy report came out. And I found out he was in stage four of CTE. That's why he was speaking that gibberish. And somebody told me recently that it wasn't gibberish he was speaking, it was some kind of old world language. He was a really educated guy. He was an engineer as well. He was this very, very intelligent guy, but he was speaking some old cryptic dark language or something he was speaking. It wasn't even gibberish. And that's how I realized this thing.

Marla Miller: 23:24

And they can't diagnose it, right? Isn't that the thing they can't diagnose until you are dead? Absolutely. Through an autopsy.

William Person: 23:32

Yeah.

Marla Miller: 23:33

Yeah, that is incredible how that finally all came together for you. And that your girlfriend at that time was able to recognize in you, even though you weren't seeing those symptoms in yourself.

William Person: 23:45

That's the problem with this thing. No athlete I've ever met, except for this high school kid who just killed himself in New York. He said he had it. He went to go kill the people in the NFL office. That's about two months ago. I'm not sure if you saw that story. I've never seen any other athlete ever know they had this thing. They were just like me, like, no, didn't get me. But let them start talking long enough. You'll hear the bizarre things that are going on in their life. And it's everybody is weird. It's just weird stuff. Like somebody needs to come and document the stories. None of it makes sense. But the thing is for me, how can I see it in everybody else? But I can't see it in myself. That's the scary part.

Marla Miller: 24:23

Yeah. Well, what happened at that point when your girlfriend circled those things and you realized, and then you got the autopsy report of your friend and teammate? Then where did you go from there?

William Person: 24:37

I started talking to athletes and um connecting the dots. And I realized it wasn't just me. It wasn't just those guys. It was pretty much everybody I spoke to and everybody they spoke to. But most of us, we couldn't put into words what was wrong with us. And like with Pavle, like I felt so guilty about him passing like that. Like I thought I was supposed to save his life, you know. I've always been that hero guy. But the truth was, I think he came to save my life, and that's just what really happened. But after that, I just started just trying to connect the dots. And once I connected them, I'm thinking we all need help. Our federation, like those are things I explained to you earlier. I knew they wouldn't listen to me unless I came in with the lawyers. And so I did that. I fought a class action, asking them to figure out this stuff and get us some help. And uh, even to this day, I was in court yesterday. They're still refusing to help us. And then also they're refusing to warn. The number one thing I requested that I said it's non-negotiable, is you have to warn these next kids. You're not gonna let them get in this sled without them understanding the possibilities of what's down the road for them. And so, like, I won't haven't signed up on that lawsuit yet because they won't do it. But eventually they're probably gonna win by default because my lawyers have turned their back on us, and they're now standing with the defense. There's a $2.1 million offer on the table right now, and that money only goes toward mainly the lawyers. There's some money for people that's gonna monitor us, but they won't treat us. They're monitors only. And I'm just like, we are not lab rats. You need to find some help, and they won't do it. So even uh Robert Shapiro, Joe J. Simpson's lawyer, he came aboard. He did an investigation, he sent me an email. I have receipts, guys. Anything I say, I have receipts for. He said he fired my lead counsel and he kept the counsel. Then a couple days later, he sent me an email saying he can't help me. And so this case is so ugly. Athletes are definitely not getting what they need. And it's just scary because now that I'm a lot clearer and I can read a little bit better now, I can read and comprehend. And I'm seeing the whole picture now. Like our military vets are coming back. And those guys, they usually say they have PTSD. But now that they're checking their brains upon autopsies and stuff, they're finding out they actually have CTE. Which means, well, put it this way: in 2020, there were 6,400 veteran suicides, right? There was another 5,000 overdoses. Now, if it's an overdose, even if they leave a suicide note, they don't count that as a suicide. But I do, because that's how people with CTE usually die. They're medicating, trying to feel better, calm the symptoms down, and then what that's what kills them. And so we're looking at 11,000 veterans a year that's dying behind this. And so it's like no one could have more injuries or concussions than me because I did it for nine years. I took between one and six and even one time seven rides a day. And I did it for nine years, and in five months of the year, it's just a lot. And if it woke me up and brought me back, like my goal right now, I've just been trying to spread the word and help everybody to kind of rebound from this stuff. Because even though the symptoms are awful, you don't have to let it kill you. You don't have to die from it. You don't have to self-medicate until you there's other things that you can do, but we just have to talk about it. People aren't disclosing this information, you know. That's the scary part. Yeah. But it took for Joe Namath about people to save me. Joe Namath. You know, he played football before I was born. He was done playing.

Marla Miller: 28:10

How did he help you?

William Person: 28:12

He put out some videos. He said he used it to reverse his CTE symptoms.

Marla Miller: 28:16

A video about the hyperbaric oxygen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

William Person: 28:20

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, he put out some videos. He said he used it to reverse his CTE symptoms. And the truth is, I didn't think it was gonna work, but I I tried it because I had nothing else left. And um, first time I was in there for one hour, it took 10 years of cloudiness off me.

Marla Miller: 28:36

Wow.

William Person: 28:37

Yeah, it was I was clear for six days, and I went back. And then the next time I was clear for like nine days, and that's the chamber right behind me. That's my personal one. And so now I just make sure I just try to stay up on it, stay with it. And I'll be honest, like so many people get that permanent relief. I'm not one of them, but it's a much better alternative than what I was. I don't have to take any medicine, any pills, or all that stuff that wasn't working anyway. But yeah, this is what helps me now.

Marla Miller: 29:04

So, where did you go for the hyperbaric oxygen chamber the first time?

William Person: 29:09

There's a place in Orange County, I think it's called Oxy Health. There's a guy that worked in there named Hans. They let me come in and try it for free. That's the whole bizarre thing. I was in that chamber for one hour. And when I came out, if you look at my glasses, they're slightly tinted because I'm I'm sensitive to lights, smells, and sounds now. So I'm in that chamber for an hour. I come out, I'm taking these glasses, I'm putting them on and taking them off because I don't really need them. It's like everything was so vivid, and uh, it's almost like the world was in 3D now. And then this salesman comes over and he's like, What's wrong? And I was like, I don't know, I don't think I need my glasses right now. And he said, Oh, you one of those. And I'm a skeptic. I'm like, okay, he's gonna try to sell me this machine. Like, I just bought a house, I don't have any cash left over. Like, I just I can't, you know. But he was right. Some people get immediate relief, and some people need two sessions a day for 30 days to get that same kind of relief. And I happen to be the first. But yeah, it's just just changed my life.

Marla Miller: 30:06

I know there's a couple different kinds, right? Of the hyperbaric oxygen chamber. You have the canvas one like you have right there behind you, and then there's the hospital grade.

William Person: 30:17

Yes.

Marla Miller: 30:18

They're ones that more than one person can sit in, and the pressure is different, right?

William Person: 30:22

Yeah.

Marla Miller: 30:23

Do you want to explain which type benefits you, or do they both benefit you? Does it matter?

William Person: 30:30

Well, I think they all benefit you. Like I use the lowest pressure chamber there is. So this one makes my body believe it's like nine feet underwater. And so when you're underwater like that, your blood is like a gas. And so it can get through all the blockages. That's what it's for. So people will have strokes. A lot of people you see using this technology, it'll reverse your stroke symptoms. If you have cancer, they'll put you in a chamber before chemo, during chemo, and after chemo, depending on which kind of chemo that you're taking. There's a couple kinds you can't mix them. It'll make it too toxic for you. And so this one here's a soft shell. It looks like canvas, but that's a covering over it.

Marla Miller: 31:06

But the difference between the two isn't about the cover, but it's about the pressure.

William Person: 31:11

It's the pressure. Yeah, like I use a 1.3. There's a 1.5 out there. You can get a 1.6, 7. Then a 2.0, anything above 2.0, you're going to find those in hospitals. Those are for burn victims, people with bed sores, uh, people who get the bins from coming up in the ocean too quick. But yeah.

Marla Miller: 31:29

Well, so once you were finding benefit from this hyperbaric oxygen chamber, do you realize you want to do it as often as is helpful, right? And yeah, how were you able to afford it? How does that process work for people that, you know, maybe don't have a lot of money?

William Person: 31:49

Well, that's that's where the dilemma comes in at. It's it's very expensive. Like I'm in Los Angeles. And let's say you wanted to go to a place to use it. There's places in the community you can go and use them. They're gonna cost you $200 an hour to use a chamber. So if you need, you know, 30 days worth of sessions and you need two a day, you know, you're looking about $12,000. And so it's not really accessible to most people, like our veterans, people who really need it. And for me, I got to the point where I knew I needed the money to do it. And so my dad wanted to pay for it. I was like, nope, I'm not taking your money. No, you you're just retiring, you know. And I was like, nah, dad, I'm a grown man now, I'll I'll figure it out. And the thing about this thing is, is um when the benefits of it were off, I was back in the same spot I was in. And I couldn't even remember that I was supposed to be trying to put money together to get this thing. And so I'm fading away. So my girlfriend is on the phone with my dad a lot, and I didn't know this. And then one day I wake up and there's 20,000 bucks in my account. And so I'm checking, paying bills that day, and I look, it can only come from one place. So I called dad and he's like, Yeah, and I go get the chamber. And so that's what I did. My dad, he stepped in and saved me. And that's the one thing about this condition. I've been watching all the players and our veterans who have the condition die from it. It's your loved ones. Without your loved ones around you, it's hard to survive this thing. Like the last eight NFL guys, I think I saw, most of them who took their life, like, they were now living separate from their spouses. And there was only one man who's living with his spouse and his family, but he was living in the back bedroom. This condition is very, it's very unforgiving. That's what I can say. And it's brutal.

Marla Miller: 33:28

So when you were able to get that hyperbaric oxygen chamber, how much is the cost of that to have one in your own home?

William Person: 33:36

Um, the one I bought is it cost me around $20,000. I've seen them way cheaper now. The price is starting to come down on them in different markets. So if you shop around, you can find them cheaper.

Marla Miller: 33:48

Well, that is great when you have a condition like that that's so persistent to have it in your own home and to be able to use it. I'm sure that really saves you a lot of money in the long run, like you said, as opposed to going to a facility and doing it.

William Person: 34:04

Well, and last time I checked, I was like 560 or 70 hours I've been in that machine. And like I said, if I go 30 days without it, I'll get back to where I was. Like it's hard for me to form sentences, some words I won't be able to say, and I just start to struggle. Like one time I was feeling better, I felt normal. And I was like, God, I think I'm back, you know, and I did a test. All these other people said they got permanent relief, so they don't need it anymore. Like Joe Name, he's one of them. So I stopped using it. I don't know how long it was, how long it took, but eventually I'm back in that dark place. And I didn't know why, and I couldn't figure it out. I'm going for long walks and I'm trying to hide this from my girlfriend at the time. I didn't want her to know and to see me like that. And I asked myself, like, God, why am I still going through this? When I came back in the house, at that time I had to situate it in the living room because I didn't have a new space for it yet. I literally tripped over it and I looked at it, I said, oh yeah, wait a minute. I'm doing the test to see if I still need it, you know. I still need it. And then it took me a couple days to kind of recalibrate and rebalance. And the problem I run into now, I want to open up this facility so I can provide the service for free. So I went to the Midwest looking at buildings. I'm gone for over a month. So my way back, oh man, um, I even made a video and posted it on my TikTok, but I'm I'm suffering. And when I got back home, got in the chamber, instead of it taking me one or two days to recalibrate, now it's taking me weeks to recalibrate. So I don't know why, you know. So now I'm just trying to make sure I do better with sticking with it and not not taking those big breaks because it's just it gets a little bit harder every time.

Marla Miller: 35:45

Yeah, sounds cumulative. Like the more you do it in quicker succession, the more beneficial it is.

William Person: 35:52

Yeah, it's just it's better not to take the breaks for me. I've tell people I'm like the guinea pig. If I can wake up from where I was at, I think everybody probably will. That's really what my gut tells me.

Marla Miller: 36:02

Well, and when they have the information. So the fact that you're educating people on this and coming from such a deep experience yourself, I mean, you know what you're talking about, that's for sure. So I think you're a great voice for this. And hopefully it does get out there to a lot of people. Let's talk about some of the other people. So it's not only people in sports, which would be boxing and the UFC and football and bobsledding. Yeah.

William Person: 36:34

I feel sorry for them. I know what their future looks like. I know, I already know. There's no way they're getting out of this thing smelling like roses. Matter of fact, I met Leon Spinks a few years ago. It was before I knew what my condition was. And like he had this autograph. It said Leon Spinks, World Champ, 1978. So as he signed an autograph, he had to look at it and then write something, look, right, look at it. He couldn't even sign his own autograph, you know. And so when my symptoms already kicked in, but like I'm still thinking it's diabetes back then. But once I figured out what it really was, all I could think about is Sphinx. I'm thinking, oh my God, is that where I'm headed? I'm like, damn, that's where I'm at. I wasn't too far from him, you know, and um it's brutal stuff. That's all I can really say. I keep saying it is brutal, it's so unforgiving.

Marla Miller: 37:25

Well, so in addition to that, it's also like you said, domestic violence, or it's all the vets, even in the military, just having a mortar go off right in the distance and it rattles your brain. Yeah. And then you also have people that were in car accidents as well.

William Person: 37:44

Yeah, absolutely. So many misdiagnoses out there. Matter of fact, um, my first job when I left college, I worked at this weird place. It was the first mental health facility that was west of the Mississippi River. It was in Stockton, California, San Joaquin County Mental Health Department. So all the extreme behaviors came there to uh, you know, get some relief. And so I'm working there and saw the you know, the people with depression, all the bipolar schizophrenia spectrums and the um criminally insane would come through for court sometime. And then we also had people who were still alive with lobotomies back then. So I grew up in that environment seeing them so when Kanye West came out and said he was bipolar, I posted online quite a few times. That guy's not bipolar, he might be schizophrenic, but he ain't bipolar, you know. So he had a documentary that came out a couple months ago, and I went to see it. And um, man, everything he was saying, it lined up with concussion syndrome. I'm like, wait a minute. He's a rapper, though. Because he was so erratic. Like that. Man, I've seen that with the athletes, and it's just he is not bipolar. That is not what that is. And so I remember one day the doctors gave me a Zolof. I had already made a deal with God, like, I'm not gonna take my life. When I started taking that Zolof, that deal was almost off the table. My problem seemed 80 times worse. And eventually I had to just stop it. I just nope, no more, you know. And then I kind of went back to where I was, you know. And so he was talking about the same thing. The pills make him feel worse. I said, okay, that makes sense for what I was dealing with. And then he said something that would really shock me. I did the numbers. He was diagnosed bipolar at 40. I was like, no, no, no, no. It's possible, but not really. Most times you're gonna get that diagnosis between 18, 19, maybe 21. You might get one outlier in 25, possibly a 31, if somewhere you're hidden somewhere when people aren't seeing you. But usually you're gonna be doing things that are bizarre. If somebody's gonna report you, either your school or something, you're gonna get those, you're getting that diagnosis. I'm sorry. And you're not gonna wait till you're 40 to get it. And so when I did those numbers, I was like, he's misdiagnosed. And I was like, but how could that be? And I remember a song he put out, I think it's called Spit Through the Wire or something like that. Something through the wire. He talked about having a car accident. And uh he said his jaw was broken and it was in the back of his mouth. So that meant he had a concussion. And one thing about concussions, they don't treat them. We don't treat concussions at all. Like the only advice I ever got for concussion was they told me to go back to the hotel and don't go to sleep for the first few hours. You know, and like that's that's all you get. That's it. You might be back up racing the next day or as soon as you can. But it's the same thing with anybody in America who gets a concussion. Because every soft tissue injury I've ever had, you know, all the Swelling goes there, and before you get healthy again, you have to remove that swelling. So, how do you do it in the brain? They didn't have a way to do it, they didn't know how to do it. But the science of this machine is it does it, does it for you. It's like your blood's like a gas, so it can get through all the blockages. And uh, matter of fact, a few months ago, I was interviewed by the military from the UK, and they told me they can't do deep-sea diving over there. But what they do is they take their soldiers and they go to an island out in the middle of nowhere. I forgot what island it is. He said they go down there and they deep sea dive and they stay down there for a really long time. And when they come back up, they just like kind of new again. And actually, every time you get in a hyperbic chamber, it's called a dive. So my machine is simulating what they're doing naturally to uh reduce that swelling on the brain. And I believe that's what the answer is, because it's the only injury we don't try to remove that inflammation or do something to it, we just let it sit.

Marla Miller: 41:33

Yeah, and it's particularly bad when someone has that concussion, but then before it has a chance to heal, and I guess the inflammation goes down, they get another one on top of it.

William Person: 41:45

Yeah. And I did that every day for four months of the year. Because every time I went down that track, now I know what it is. I was getting those micro concussions. We all were. I haven't met an athlete from Bob Suddenly who's not sick yet. It's not one or two, it's hundreds. And it's global. Matter of fact, when I started speaking about it, I found out it's the Canadians, it's the Jamaicans, it's the Europeans, it's it's all of us. But it's just kind of being swept under the rug. And I'm the only one talking about it right now. Well, it was a few other people, but it just doesn't sit well with me. Like, we know this is going on. We're not gonna let our children continue to hit this condition that they can be avoided. Yeah. Especially if we know what it is. Like, I mean, that's that's like murder. Like we understand what it is, and we're not warning them. That's murder. That's how I look at it.

Marla Miller: 42:34

Like you said, they should at least know ahead of time what they're getting into. I mean, if they still want to make that choice, then they make that choice. But to not be educated about it and understand the ramifications isn't right.

William Person: 42:48

Yeah.

Marla Miller: 42:49

So let's talk about your mission these days, you know, your passion for helping other people and what it is you most would like to do.

William Person: 43:00

Well, I'm officially a 501c3. And what I currently do, I have a TikTok channel and I help people. First of all, I started it just to drop the breadcrumbs so people understand what it is, how it helps. Because Joe Namers didn't, he didn't leave those details. He just left that broad statement, right? And so now it's kind of shifted to now I just teach people how to live with the condition. Like now that I'm stable, I can teach people that. And so I now with the 501c3, what I do, I've been helping people find hyperbaric oxygen in their communities. Sometimes we can help them get reasonable rates or cheap rates or even free in some cases. But now we'll have a facility where people can just come there and uh I don't have to send people everywhere now. You can come to me. And if you need 30 days of treatment, we got you covered. And so that's what we're working on now. Yes.

Marla Miller: 43:47

So the 501c is a nonprofit organization?

William Person: 43:51

Yes. Yes.

Marla Miller: 43:53

So you are creating your own facility, and where is that located?

William Person: 43:58

It'll be right in the center of the country, uh, St. Louis.

Marla Miller: 44:01

So you'll have one of these machines, or do you hope to build on that and have a number of them available?

William Person: 44:08

I I want to have a few. Like this company right now who's interested in building me one, it's a six-person chamber. So if you need an hour session, and if I'm open eight hours a day, that's 48 people that I can treat per day in a perfect world, you know. So I'm just offering what saved me. I'm not uh recreating your will. Like I tell people all the time, like, I have so many these strangers now. Well, they're not strangers, but people I didn't know them and I helped them. Now they're calling me and they're in tears and they're so grateful. And I tell everybody, like, this is not me, guys. This information came from Joe Namath. He saved me. And so I try to send all that gratitude back over where it started. Yeah, if that kind of makes sense.

Marla Miller: 44:47

Makes perfect sense.

William Person: 44:49

Yeah.

Marla Miller: 44:49

To know how that feels yourself to be treated and come out of that deep depression, really. And it must be so rewarding to have those people contact you in tears. Oh, absolutely.

William Person: 45:02

Nothing like it. Just like when I was back working in treatment. And uh, you know, you changed somebody's life. Yeah, man.

Marla Miller: 45:09

So do you have an example of someone's life that was turned around from it?

William Person: 45:15

Oh, I got quite a few. One of the guys, um, his girlfriend actually reached out to me. Misdiagnosis is very easy, and I try not to do that. And I'm not trying to diagnose anyone, but when I see what the symptoms are, a lot of times, like I can look at that person. If you let me talk to them, there's some glitches that we all have, you know, and I I have it too. Matter of fact, it's happened a few times since we've been talking. And I know what it is now. Like I know how to, you know, kind of read that thing now. And so yeah, we helped him find the chamber. The guy did get his first session, and man, it allowed him to get sober now. So one of the things he was doing was self-medicating. I'm trying to make sure I don't say names here. Yeah. But yeah, he was he was self-medicating with alcohol, so now he's sober. And so that dynamic right there alone changes. But the one thing that he didn't start doing was more, he'd probably need to do more sessions and really keep it moving. But yeah, it was quick. It changed, and it was hours my phone was ringing. And like, oh my God, like, wow, this is real stuff. This is not well, I don't want to ramble on you because I'm so passionate about what I'm doing.

Marla Miller: 46:20

Go ahead. What were you gonna say?

William Person: 46:21

Man, I'm not even sure at this point. I trust me, I'll I'll go down that rabbit hole real quick and I'll never answer your question. Because like So, do you have uh one more story? Uh yeah, one of the first guys who reached out to me, matter of fact, his post might still be up on my page. It was a hockey player. And um, he said he was about to commit suicide that night. Someone sent him an article about me, about me fighting back. And I never met this guy. I didn't know who he was. He was a hockey player, like uh I don't know a lot of hockey players. And he said that it gave him the courage to fight because he was gonna take his life that night when somebody sent him that article. And uh this grown man calling me, and he's just in tears and tears and tears. But it's just that kind of thing over and over and over. The thing about the chamber, it's so quick, like six, seven, eight weeks or something like that. It's nothing like that. For everybody that I've seen go through it so far, it's it's extremely fast. Like you're gonna know right away if it's gonna help you or not. It's pretty quick. Like for me, I knew right away it was working within hours, but I didn't get the real benefit until for me, many sessions in. It was I'm slowly, gradually getting a little bit stronger. Like 2022, I was struggling to talk, you know. So, like now, like I'm in court fighting the lawyers that I hired and representing myself and 700 athletes in court now. So I went from not being able to form sentences very well to like, hey, wait a minute, and standing up for everybody. And so, like, I'm I'm a walking testimony to what this stuff really is.

Marla Miller: 47:59

That's incredible what you're doing to help other people, not only with creating this nonprofit and wanting to help people afford it, but even going to court on behalf of not only yourself, but all the athletes out there that are suffering.

William Person: 48:15

It's I tried to do it the right way. I tried to do it the right way. And um, you know, it's it's a shame how it's turning out right now. But in the end, I I was telling the judge yesterday, I told him the world is watching. Everybody sees what you guys are doing, and eventually, you know, somebody's gonna be on the wrong side of history, and we already know where they are right now.

Marla Miller: 48:37

Yeah. Well, I think this year and the next couple years, this is the time or a reckoning in the world. I think we're seeing it in all these different areas. So I think you're right on time with all of this.

William Person: 48:50

Well, the other thing is like when this article came out about the pilots, as soon as I shared that with the lawyers and started talking to the judge about it, somehow they scrubbed it from the internet. You cannot find that article. So the New York Times actually sent me a live link where I can get to it. But somebody got to that link, and then I felt awful because that information was put out there so that these fighter pilots who are struggling. I've met many fighter pilots now who are struggling and they didn't know that there was a connection. And I'm thinking, like, what? And oh, so now here I am. I'm speaking with military. I'm trying to spread the word. Like, we know what this is, we know exactly where it came from, and here's something that'll help you. Okay, now that you know what this is, like don't panic because now we got something that's gonna help too. So we would like there's a solution here.

Marla Miller: 49:39

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's so great for people to know there is a solution, there's help for them. So I like to ask three questions of people that have gone through a tough time and come out the other end. During the struggles that you were having, what was the biggest obstacle to you finding healing?

William Person: 50:00

Well, I'd be honest, I'm still looking for healing because like one of my biggest nightmares is that one day that light switch goes back off and I don't come back. And I'm sitting here stuck in this body again like that. I'm like, God, like, sheesh. The thought of that is just um overwhelming. And I'm hoping it's irrational because I'm doing so much better now. And um I'm sorry, but what was your question? You see, you took me down.

Marla Miller: 50:27

I told you you get what was the biggest obstacle before you found the hyperbaric chamber. What was the biggest obstacle for you?

William Person: 50:39

Oh, understanding what this is. Yeah, that really trying to figure it out, especially after going to the doctors and they're telling me, oh, your blood looks great, or you're 6'1, you're 220, nothing wrong with you, you know. They didn't like no man, I got a loss coming here. Like, and I only live a half mile away. I walked. It's a straight shot. Like, they're not listening. They are not listening. That's the hard part.

Marla Miller: 51:02

Well, what was the biggest lesson that you learned along the way?

William Person: 51:06

Well, I don't expect the courts to save us. So we have to save ourselves. And that's the biggest thing I learned about this whole journey. And I did it the right way. I came in, I didn't ask them for no money for myself. I didn't say, give me this, give me that, but I'm going to now. If they're not gonna do it the right way, we're gonna do it the hard way. I asked them just to find out what this is to treat our guys. Let's get this suicide stuff off of everybody. Too many strokes and seizures and help us. That's what I was begging the coach for. Help us with some relief here. I didn't say give us all the money, you got it. I didn't even say give me some money at all. It's help us. And they're warning that new generation. And now that I know they're not doing it, they're gonna learn one way or the other. Because eventually, when those lawsuits start going individual, like the Bobster team will never get another sponsor because they're gonna go out to your sponsors too. You know, which we could have done, which I just didn't want to do because uh I didn't come out to the Olympic team. I came to help people. I didn't come to cause this fight. But now that they're making it one, you know, eventually, like they had a chance to be the hero. I gave them a chance to be the hero. They come in and figure this thing out, we can move forward together, but they don't want to help anybody. That's just what it is.

Marla Miller: 52:19

Well, what was the kind of thing someone did for you during your struggles?

William Person: 52:25

You know what? The truth is, I was in such a dark place for so long. Maybe people were doing things for me. I have no idea. But so much darkness I don't I don't remember. Like the day my teammate called me speaking Jewish until the day he committed suicide. I have no recollection of those days. I don't know if it was a week, a month, six months, or an hour. I don't really know the truth. And so there's a lot of things that I'm I've lost. But the biggest thing I would have to say would be Joe Namuth sharing his information.

Marla Miller: 52:56

Well, how can people get more information? And is this nonprofit organization is this available now already?

William Person: 53:04

Absolutely, absolutely. As of two weeks ago, we're available.

Marla Miller: 53:07

Oh, that's awesome!

William Person: 53:09

Yes.

Marla Miller: 53:09

So, how can people reach you or find out more about it?

William Person: 53:13

Well, you can find us easy. The new company is American Post-Concussion Wellness Center. It's gonna be the only free post-concussion wellness center in the country. And so my goal is it's got to be free, or I'm not opening my doors. I have a lot of investors who want to come aboard, but I'm gonna have to charge the people for it, and I'm not charging. So if I can't do it the right way, we're not gonna open these doors. And I told some of the investors, like, listen, guys, you know what I'm doing. You know where I'm gonna open. You can go do that on your own. But when I open my doors, it's gonna be free to the American public. And so that's what we're working on. Because there's too many of us who's afflicted with this thing and are not getting the help. And the ones who know they need the help, they can't afford the help because these things aren't accessible in all communities. Like I know a lot of people like in Beverly Hills, man, these things are in everybody's homes. You know, people have them, they understand what they are. But in the underserved communities, our middle class communities have no idea. Yeah.

Marla Miller: 54:09

Well, that's so great. So they can look up that company name. Do you have a website?

William Person: 54:15

I just changed the company name because I like when I saw my soldiers coming in, and I'm on the Olympic side, we got the soldiers. The one thing that combined us was the American flag. And so that's why I changed to American Post. Before it was just my last name, Person CTE Wellness Center. So I had to change my website and all that stuff. It's being recreated. So that'll be coming up soon. But you can find me on all social media links, one man with the chamber. If your loved one is struggling with it, like I don't expect anybody who's struggling with it to find me because usually they don't know. It's the loved ones, it's the ones who who notice when somebody's not doing something, like they're not acting like themselves. They're doing something out of the norm. That's when you got to try to find help for people. But you can find me over at one man with a chamber uh on a TikTok, and I'll help you maneuver that. I'm not gonna say it's not that difficult, but once you understand what you're looking at, it gets a little bit easier.

Marla Miller: 55:08

So the best way for them to reach you with a message so you could help them would be one man with a chamber on TikTok. Okay. Any other social media or is it just Well, you you can find me on all social media.

William Person: 55:21

Just my last name, first name, William in person, P-E-R-S-O-N. There's not that many of us. I have a pretty nice size social media present because of the case and stuff and what I'm doing now. But you can find me very easy. Yeah, but the website will be back up and hopefully by uh January 1st or so. I'll I'm hoping.

Marla Miller: 55:39

Okay, perfect.

William Person: 55:40

Yeah, and we we look for partnerships, though. If we have anybody that wants to do partnerships, we have a crowdfunding one right now. It's under one man with a chamber on GoFundMe if you want to make a donation. Remember this, all this going back into is just paying for the equipment. And the good thing about this equipment is like, like now that I have this chamber, I was hoping I was gonna need it very long. I was hoping to be like Joe Nameth and rest of those guys who get the permanent relief, but I'm not. And I've been in this chamber for more than five, six hundred hours. And so once I purchase it, it doesn't cost me anything to turn that switch on and get in that chamber. And so that's how we're gonna be able to help these other people. We're gonna throw some solar on that building, and all we have to do is turn that switch on. And so we're set up this not-for-profit. And I don't want to get too dark, but I guess I will be what you call a whistleblower. There's a lot of Olympic athletes, a lot of military dying. And I hate to say this, but you know, whistleblowers in America don't live long. So I've been warned, I've been getting the warnings, and uh, you know, my life has played out just like the movie Concussion. So what I'm doing is set up, we're now not-for-profit. I'm gonna own the building, it'll be in that thing, everything will be together. So when my day comes for me to leave this place, it'll still be up and running for the American people. And that's what we're doing, nothing more.

Marla Miller: 56:57

Well, I commend you for all you're doing for others and for surviving, finding a way for yourself to regain your health. And I'm happy that you're in a better place now. So thank you for sharing all of your wisdom and the education and your big heart.

William Person: 57:18

Thank you. I appreciate it. And thank you. Because um, like I said, the more people who are talking, I said the safer it makes me to be very honest. That's the truth of it, is uh we're keeping the word moving, and I'm gonna keep doing what needs to be done here. Because if you go and do the numbers, 31% of the mass shootings since 2012 are veterans coming back, turning the guns on us and other veterans. And so we have to do something to help these guys. And, you know, it's it's just sad. I just wonder how many of them could have gone through the therapy and be okay today. In three years, we lost more than 30,000. It just doesn't make sense to me. But there's organizations that found me. Uh, one is called treatnow.org. If you're a veteran, you can look these guys up. They understand what this what these machines do, and they're trying to get legislation changed. So look them up. You can look me up. And I'm not the only one doing it, guys. I didn't create this, I didn't design this. I can't even take credit for any of it. I'm just paying it forward.