COVID-19 Files: Ep. 4

Hello everyone it is now time for gut check project COVID file number four. We have an incredible guest today with joining your host Dr. Ken Brown. We how now have Mr. Chris Austin from Waxahachie, Texas. He is here with sea long medical and you may have seen some of his incredible essentially their vent hoods they are hyperbaric vent hoods that allow people to breathe better. Chris, thank you so much for taking time out of I know is a very busy morning as you prepare for for more work at sea long medical down here in Waxahachie. How are you doing?

Oh, we're doing well. We're, we're we're feeling good. Oh, no. And first of all, I need to apologize a little bit. It's starting already. My voice starts to go away. Early and earlier every day because of so much talking and stuff we do but anyway, we're doing well just not much sleep and a whole lot of talking but it's all it's all great. It's all wonderful. People are being so, so supportive, it's just I can't even get my head around it still. 

Well, no, it's it's awesome. We're obviously in the middle of the pandemic here with the with the COVID crisis but can you want to speak a little bit about what it is that you saw on the TV and why you called me and how I ended up reaching out to Chris.

Absolutely. I may sound a little different because the internet went out of the studio so I'm doing this by phone so that's yeah, so you and I are feeling the same thing here. So I was watching and I kind of joke about this that I've actually become my dad and I like 60 minutes now so a lot 60 minutes.

My granddad so don't...I'm with you there.

And they did this incredible segment. First of all, they they lead up to it with this with the the stress that the New York doctors are under followed by nurse segment, which was just incredible, and I don't want give anything away but I just sat down with holy cow, he's a neighbor. We're here in Dallas, you're in Waxahachie, Texas, and fortunately, like a like a good Texan you woke up early and agreed to do this interview just because you're a nice guy, so it's pretty exciting.

Well that's I appreciate all that but I we're up, we've been up working here for over an hour already. We've been starting at six because of the crisis and staying here til two in the morning the other day, I was there till four in the morning day before yesterday. Just the way it flows go. So, but thank you very much. 

So Chris, before we started the interview, you let me know that sea long medical has been around basically doing these hyperbaric helmets since 1985. But you ended up acquiring the company and moving it from Kentucky down to Waxahachie, Texas back in 2016. What drew Chris Austin to sea long medical and then to bring it down here to Waxahachie?

That's good question the, the whole thing started because we have a mutual friend who lived up by Lake Possum Kingdom. And he manufactures hyperbaric hoods does a company called tekna industries and through mutual friends and something like that we became friends. And I have diabetes. So I have neuropathy pretty bad. And was having a lot of problems with my legs. Can you say, Chris, come up here. Let's do some dives. Let's fix that and I didn't really know anything about it at the time. So I said I wanted to come see him anyway it's a beautiful area up there. I went up and staying awhile and took took some treatments, a week's worth of treatments and it's It was incredibly incredibly life changing what happened. I could drastically reduce my insulin. The...neuropathy I'm sorry, it's just went away for not not forever it was gone for about a month. So it was definitely a you know, a changing event for me. I mean it was a whole bunch of other things happened that some people say doesn't happen but my eyesight got better my hearing my sense of smell. You know, it's like a Popeye when I ate this big can of spinach kind of and I said, you know what last getting off track here kinda I used the sea long hood. That's what I use for my treatments. And because that's what he uses. He wasn't he was pretty good friends but pretty good friends with the previous owner and after a while I've gone back and done several more and same results. And he called me. Philip called me and said, Chris, I need to talk to you. So okay, great. No problem. Got up there and did another treatment. And he said, you know, that product you're using, that's hood. Yeah, that's pretty cool. He goes, it's probably going to go out of business. The owners have been around a long time, and they're ready to, you know, retire and move on. And nobody has taken up on his offer to buy the company. And he stated that the company is so important and the product is so important. I really think you ought to buy it because I had just retired after 30 years as an aerospace engineer. 

Nice.

Oh, wow.

That's what we did.

Wow, that is incredible. So I'm actually far more endeared to the story. You are drawn to it because of your own personal experience and benefit. You knew you needed to save the technology so that other people could have that benefit. That drew you into it. You were in retirement, you said that this is something that we can do. You had no idea that there's gonna be a pandemic, though around the corner in 2020, did you?

Not really? But I'll tell you a huge cascade of events in my life for probably three or four years before that, Up to that time, and significantly after that time, made this all possible. No, it mandated it that this was going to happen. You know, we knew about the the aspects of the potential for a great life saving product for non invasive ventilation. And it just spoke, spoke to my heart and my mind right there said, this is what we're doing. This is our destiny. And that's why we're here.

That's incredible. Wow.

So You, you said that there was a gentleman who was at sea long. Was sea long medical created simply for the...the manufacturing of the hyperbaric helmet?

Correct. No, no sea long...he, see here. That's a big, big story. But Hill-he previously owned a very large injection molding corporation. 

Okay. 

And a man by the name of shorty long, who was acquaintance of his, who was a professional deep sea diver said, I need something like this and it doesn't exist. They drew up a sketch on a napkin kind of thing. And the helmet was born. And shorty long said I don't I'm a diver. I've got a big diving business and stuff here. I don't want it...you run with it. You've already got all the equipment and all this. So I did.

Well, you kind of hinted at it already because of your own revelations on how you began to feel better. I had a question written down which was to ask you before the COVID situation if if beyond the helmet being an intermediary step before or hopefully saving somebody from intubation, if there were specific diseases that it worked for but you already mentioned, retinopathy and diabetes, do you know if anybody like with sickle cell anemia what...are those are those types of patients that also benefit from this type of hyperbaric helmet? 

Well, as you guys know, in the medical field, there's there's a lot of things we have to tread lightly on as far as what we say.

Oh, ok.

No, I'm gonna say it. I'm just giving you that caveat up front. Because the vast vast majority of the indications that we have...I can't even count how many...people have told us this. Plus as we are so became so close to the industry and the and the the process I've personally seen been there and talked to amazing things. children with autism, PTSD course an incredible array of soft tissue damage. Incredible, incredible positive results for traumatic brain injury. And one of them in particular if you look up Joe Namath, you know, the famous New York Jets, quarterback, and few more, but he's g...