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HBOT News welcomes Jim Hooker, a 83 year old retired Navy Vietnam veteran, who served our country for 20 years. After leaving the military, he spent the next 36 years in Washington D.C., and during that time he got involved with a church ministry that was taking care of injured veterans. One thing lead to another and that ministry paved the way for Jim to become Chief Operating Officer of the Wounded In Action Family Foundation. Their mission was to bring the injured men and women home after they were discharged from the hospitals, because the military doesn’t do a very good job of telling vets how to get home to their families, or preparing the family for what they will soon experience living with an injured veteran of war.

Jim tells the story of his very first case.  It was a triple amputee, young man in the Army, who was married and had five children, Jim’s foundation spent $400,000 over 36 months getting this vet to where they thought was settled and ready to come home. They got him registered in a community college, set up his wife with a job, put his kids in school, and they even set the family up with a home in Maryland. They did everything they could think of to bring him home to the best environment possible, but he never came home.  He never came home because “his head didn’t work”; he had sustained too much brain damage from the blast that took his three limbs. Jim was left extremely frustrated and distraught that the mission ultimately failed — they spent all this time, energy, and money and in the end he never came home.

Soon after, Dr. Paul Harch came across Jim’s television.  It seemed like divine intervention that Dr. Harch was talking about Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy and how it heals injured brains that have PTSD and TBI. At the time (10 years ago), Jim didn’t even know what Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) was. Jim’s wife encouraged him to pay attention to what she was watching on the television, and Jim did.  He called Dr. Harch and asked if he could come to the Harch Institute in New Orleans to learn more about Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy for veterans. Dr. Harch not only welcomed Jim, they spent about two days together discussing HBOT and brain healing.  In time, Jim was eventually introduced to Major Ben Richards, a patient of Dr. Harch’s.

Ben was an Army veteran who experienced a very severe TBI in combat.  Ben was told that he needs to just get used to this new normal, and was sent on his way to live the rest of his life with a brain injury. Ben became suicidal, but crossed paths with one of Dr. Harch’s past patients who stressed that there is a therapy out there that works to heal brain injuries…. she introduced him to HBOT and Dr. Harch.  Dr. Harch treated Ben pro bono, and Jim also met with Ben at the beginning of his dive sessions. Jim refers to Ben as a man who couldn’t keep his balance to stand, his speech was slurred, and his vision was a mess. Keeping track of his progress, Jim witnessed Ben start to make a beautiful recovery after 40 dives, and then a complete recovery after 80 HBOT sessions.  They told his story to the world and Jim has since been a strong voice recommending HBOT to treat and cure veterans who are battling PTSD and TBI.  Jim, Ben, and Dr. Harch made a video that he recommends everyone watch, called “A Soldier’s Story of Combat and Homecoming”.  Ben continued to do Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy dives and as of how he’s completed about 120 dives and is absolutely thriving in life.

Jim trusted that Ben’s story was just the start to helping so many other veterans. So he went on a mission to find the proof and to show the proof that this works!  Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy not only can save the lives of our veterans, but it can free them from the chains of PTSD and TBI.  Jim has relied on his faith to lead him on this journey where he can help as many veterans as possible get the HBOT treatment they deserve.  He says meeting host, Ed di Girolamo, was one stop on his walk of faith, and he’s grateful to have met another veteran and someone so adverse in the world of HBOT who shares the same passion and drive to make a difference.

Over time, Jim met with State Legislators in North Carolina, and congressmen and women who have all listened to him as he lobbied for funding from the state to heal their veterans the way they deserve.  With the help of Dr. Greg Murphy, a doctor within the assembly of North Carolina, Jim has educated countless decision makers on the power of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy and has delivered all the proof that the answer to healing our vets is oxygen + pressure.

The law was passed under Senate Bill 442, allocating $150,000 to help veterans get 40 or more Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy treatments. Things moved quickly after that…. the HBOT for Vets website was born at the hands of a local television personality, Mike Weeks; Melissa Spain at the Community Foundation of Eastern NC was appointed the fiduciary of the funds; and Jim has been handling the incoming requests for HBOT treatment, sending approved vets to Extivita-RTP to complete the 40 Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy sessions that are paid for with the allocated state funds.

Jim reminds us that for anyone who has suffered a head injury, sometimes it’s hard to see the positive progress they are making because the brain heals so slowly. But he urges North Carolina veterans to try it and stick with it, because better days are bound to be within your reach. He outlines all the symptoms of a brain injury, and urges you to seek out Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy if you or a loved one has suffered a brain injury.

*This interview is part of a two part series with Jim Hooker, stay tuned next week on 2/17 when we release Part 2

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