From Olympic Bobsledding to TBI Survival with William Person

Jennifer Norman:
Imagine being one of the strongest athletes in the world, flying down icy tracks at nearly 100 miles an hour, only to wake up years later, unable to find your way home, unable to sit up without sickness, and nearly ready to give up on life. That was the reality for William Person, a former nine year Team USA bobsled athlete whose career left him battling symptoms consistent with CTE Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease that has taken the lives of countless athletes and veterans. At his lowest point, William could barely get up off the floor. His world dimmed to fog, pain and despair. And yet he found the strength to hold on, to live one more day at a time. Until he discovered a path back to clarity, color and hope. Today, William has turned his personal healing into a mission to protect athletes and veterans from invisible brain injuries, raise awareness of the hidden risks embedded in sports like bobsledding, and to create a non profit recovery center so that others can reclaim their quality of life without the burden of the cost.

Jennifer Norman:
In this conversation, we'll give you the facts on CTE. You'll hear William's extraordinary journey from Olympic level triumph to near tragedy, and from despair to determination. You'll learn about the silent epidemic of brain injuries in both sports and the military. How micro traumas can alter the brain as profoundly as concussions. And why awareness and advocacy are essential to safeguarding long term health. This episode is sure to be a powerful one. Don't go anywhere.

Jennifer Norman:
Hi William, thank you so much for joining me today.

William Person:
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Jennifer Norman:
So great to have this conversation. It's a really, really important one.

William Person:
Yeah.

Jennifer Norman:
The first thing that I want to do is to have you take us back to your days as a Team USA bobsled athlete. First of all, what drew you into that sport? It seems like one of those very niche kinds of things. And then tell me what was it like to compete at that level.

William Person:
The truth is I was training at Brigham Young University at the time. I was just athlete, just working out and I was probably the fastest American in the state of Utah. And so this was right around '98, '99. And we had the Salt Lake City Olympics coming. So NBC came in town and they were doing tryouts, live tryouts. And this was the last couple years of my track career. My track career was about to end and before that I was doing track. And then I was doing like...

William Person:
You ever see the movie Jerry Maguire?

Jennifer Norman:
Of course, yes.

William Person:
I'm the guy they put the equipment on and ran down the field looking to make all the actors look like athletes. So that's what I was doing for the movie. So I was doing the movies. I had my track career, which was about to end. And so somebody called me one day, and he was like, hey, NBC's doing these tryouts for bobsled for the 2002 Winter Olympics. And at first. Actually, the first couple times they called me, I was like, ah. I was like, I didn't commit to it.

William Person:
But I didn't say no. So they kept calling me, and I said, well, you know what? Maybe I'll get a sponsor out of this. In my last year of track, maybe I'll pick a sponsor up. So...

Jennifer Norman:
So even having no experience at all, you can just go and try out for being on a bobsled team.

William Person:
Yeah. Wow. It was crazy. So what I did when I got to this place, there were maybe 100 athletes or something, and so I saw the first 30 athletes go through the testing process. So what they did, they took, like, this treadmill. Treadmill is normally like that. So then they put the elevation. They put it up here.

William Person:
And then they had these bobsled handles tied to the handles. So you got to hold your bobsled handles. Now, meanwhile, that thing is hooked up to a computer, and they punch in 10 miles an hour. So the faster you run on this thing, the quicker it gets to 10 miles an hour. And they time it. Oh. So like I said, I'm a fish out of water. I don't...

William Person:
I'm just watching. So I watched the first 30 guys go through. So it's my turn. So when I went through it, like I said, NBC had the cameras on with hot lights. And so when I did it, when I finished the bobsled driver, his eyes were like the size of baseballs. Not even golf balls, baseballs. So I know I did really good or really bad. And I don't know which. I didn't know.

William Person:
So he puts his arm around me. Remember, the camera's on me. So I'm thinking, this guy's legitimate, okay? He says, if I offer you $50,000 for the next three months, would you race on my team? And so at that point, I had opened the first ever independent living transitional housing program for youth. So the state of Utah opened me up as a pilot program. So I'm a business guy. So I gave him a business answer. I was like, if it's a fair price, sure.

William Person:
If not, we can renegotiate later. But in the back of my head, I'm thinking, 50 grand for the next three months. Sign me up!

Jennifer Norman:
Right outta college.

William Person:
Yeah. I was like, yeah, I'll take that money up. But yeah. So that was on a Wednesday. We went to the bobsled track on a Sunday. I pushed the sled for the first time. And the ironic thing is we're going to like, every bobsled track is on a mountain, right? So I'm on this truck and they take us to the top of this mountain. As I step off, one of my collegiate teammates is there.

William Person:
His name is Billy. And Billy, he saw me. He's like, man, where you been? I've been trying to call you. Come race with our team. And then that bobsled driver, he's like, hey buddy, don't leave me. I'll get you more money. So I'm getting 50,000 plus a bonus. You know, I'm gonna make some good money this year.

William Person:
That's on top of my company money. So I'm like, yeah, I'm living. And so what I quickly found out is that guy tricked me. He didn't have the money. He didn't have any sponsors. Most of them, if you look at our bobsled, they're built by Nascar so they look like race cars. This guy's bobsled was shaped like a spaceship, had a bubble on it. It was not aerodynamic.

William Person:
As a matter of fact, no matter how fast I pushed that sled, the girls beat us to the bottom of the hill too. So we weren't going to win anything together. But what happened is we figured that out. Another team picked me up. I won a medal. So between the audition to race to the America's cup, seven days later, I won a medal. And then NBC took that story and ran it and I stuck around nine more years. It was fun, it was different and I love representing my country.

William Person:
And so I just stuck around and went for the ride.

Jennifer Norman:
Hit subscribe right now for more soulful stories and inspiring convers with me and The Human Beauty Movement Podcast.

Jennifer Norman:
 

Jennifer Norman:
Okay, so back to the audition for a quick moment because you apparently had not only your track prowess, but you must have been pretty darn strong because it sounds like to push a sled up an incline at that kind of level versus other athletes that were also trying out, that is... I mean, are you a big guy? What are your stats?

William Person:
Well, actually the bobsled, it was just the handles on the treadmill. So the bobstead wasn't actually on it.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, okay, got it.

William Person:
We do that kind of stuff too though.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, okay.

William Person:
No, yeah, no, yeah, I was a big guy. Well, no, actually when I started the sport. I was probably 184 pounds.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, okay.

William Person:
By the time I ran, I made the national team. I was 218ish, something like that. I got sticking right around 220. That's kind of like my base weight.

Jennifer Norman:
Okay. So, I mean. But it took a lot of, like, energy and stamina. And your track performance certainly helped you to get to land a place on the US Olympic bobsled team.

William Person:
Only the track experience did it. But it was natural. I went from rubber surface to running on ice.

Jennifer Norman:
It was really okay.

William Person:
Yeah.

Jennifer Norman:
And then after that, what is the training like? How often are you on this bobsled? And I just want to understand what it is like just from a physical perspective and what you're experiencing from, like, a head perspective and any kind of, like, micro traumas and brain injury that might have ensued.

William Person:
When the season starts and we start going down that mountain. What I found out now is like, every time I went down that track, like we were either. Sometimes you crash, which you get the big concussions. But I think now, what I understand now, when you go down the track, you still. You get the micro concussions every time you go down. So you're getting a concussion every time you went down that track. But I didn't know that. And so I went down that track between one to six times per day, sometimes four, three to four, sometimes five days a week.

Jennifer Norman:
And so how does that happen? Is it because you're curving so much and your head is hitting the bobsled? Like, how. How does that happen in terms of, like, the micro traumas there?

William Person:
Sometimes your head does the side on some of the. But like, the way my shoulders are built, like, I only have enough room to get in that sled. And I'm wedged in so my head's not moving like most people's legs. I was pretty good about being able to keep it still. I was a bigger guy. I'm wedged in there pretty good. But if you see us going down the track and you see a little ice wall, we touch it like that, like. Yeah, you go.

William Person:
It's almost equivalent to being punched in a kidney sometimes. Now we're going down that track and it's so violent, you just wish we could crash and get it out the way really, to get off that sled. Yeah. Yeah. So it's what I learned now is the micro concussions. So those are the dangerous ones, I believe. So. When I had a big concussion, like, I can't do anything, I had to go.

William Person:
Go lay down or go sit down somewhere. When you get the micro concussions, you get the same damage done, but your body's not telling you to shut it down. So you can just kind of keep doing what you're doing. And so if you don't let that brain rest on a concussion, you guess what you got, you're doing more damage. And I think that's where it's really getting us. But there's another piece of that puzzle with the G forces. Yes, G forces. I think that's the nasty one that's really getting us.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah. From a perspective of a spectator such as myself, and you're watching it on tv, a lot of times you don't realize how fast you're going. To your point about G force, I mean, you're flying down these luges, as it were. And we also don't notice all of that jostling. It seems so fluid and it just seems so graceful as you're going down. And so unless you're having like a major crash, I don't think that people really think about the impact that that can have on the body and the brain. With the G force, with all of the jostling around that does happen during training and then those live events.

William Person:
Well, the sad part about it is when I was racing, we had these things we would do. We call it VIP rides, we call it forerunning. So we'll take VIP down the track on the bobsled. So one time we took the fighter pilot, F15 fighter pilots, because they pulled more GS than bobsled. So we thought. So we pulled up five Gs They told us the pilots, I think they do between 10 and 20 Gs I heard. But they wore some kind of special pressure suit to keep them from blacking out.

William Person:
So now this is where it gets crazy. They came out, we took them down the track. I did six rides that day. I remember that.

Jennifer Norman:
Uh huh.

William Person:
They did one, but they were shook up when they got out of the sled. And I was thinking like, ooh, you took one ride, how could you be shook up? Like, I couldn't understand that. However, last December, an article came out. It was written by New York, somebody on New York Times. I think it's David something. But anyway, and that article, it stated all the fighter pilots have the same symptoms as the bobsleds from the dementia, depression, suicides, Parkinson's. So their stuff lines up with us like it's identical. It's just pretty sad to see that.

William Person:
Yeah.

Jennifer Norman:
Wow. So then how long after you had stopped bobsledding or maybe it happened while you were. Did you start noticing, like, something isn't right? Because it sounds like you were like, oh, well, this fighter pilot, why is he feeling something? You. It seems like you were pretty lucid at that particular moment in time. But then some things along the line started to change. How long was it, and what were those symptoms?

William Person:
Well, one of the first things I saw was one of my teammates. We were getting ready for a race. I don't remember where we were. It might have been in Europe, but he was looking out the corner of his eye, and then his eyes got stuck and started (twitching). I didn't say anything. I was just watching him. Like, that's weird.

William Person:
And then I asked him, I said, what's wrong? You all right? He's like, I don't know. He said, this keeps happening. And so there was little things that I saw, but I didn't see them on myself, like, the ones that was. That I was dealing with. Like, sometime I would wake up in the middle of the night, and I didn't know where I was at. I would panic. So I jump up and I run over. I hit the light switch.

William Person:
I'm like, oh, okay, I'm in Europe, or I'm in California, or I'm in the limpetraining center, or, you know, the pictures tell you where you are, especially in Europe. You know, they always had them creepy pictures on the wall when you walk by...

Jennifer Norman:
The eyes follow you, all the portraits of the old folk. So, but was that because you were training or you were around different places and you just didn't know where you were, or do you feel like it was symptomatic?

William Person:
Okay, well, what I did say at that time, I rationalized it. I was like, you know what? I travel so blessed that I was like, I rationalize it. Like, I just don't know where I'm at because I'm traveling so much. But then it continued to happen. It was other stuff.

William Person:
Like, I hadn't seen my friends in a while, so I went back home, and we met out at a little pub or something. And my buddy was looking at this lady. He said, that's your girlfriend. Ex girlfriend over there.

William Person:
And I was looking. I looked at her. I was like, she's beautiful, but I don't know her. And she ran over and jumped in my arms, and I caught her. And I was like, oh, I guess I do know her. But once again, as an athlete, you think, oh, I'm strong. All the ladies love me. You know, you get this arrogance.

William Person:
It's like. But no, the truth was, I was not recognizing people that I knew. Familiar face. But I just rationalized it was another one. I just. Wow, that's one of the craziest ones. When I first left the team, I can't.

William Person:
I moved to LA and people asked me, how old are you? I automatically said, 28. 28. And I started doing the math. Like, wait a minute, I'm not 28. I was like, huh, that's weird. And I started doing the math. Like, I said, I'm 38. Or I'm 39. I'm 40.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, you forgot how old you were.

William Person:
Yeah, I was stuck in a loop. There was a loop. And that loop. Yeah, that loop is what got me because, like, every morning I woke up, I had a little daily planner next to the bed. I had to wake up. I would look to figure out if it's Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. I can't. To this day, I can't tell a Friday from a Sunday or Monday.

William Person:
It's all the same. It's like, that's weird. And so once I figure out the day this goes, this is an everyday routine. I had to figure out what month we're in. Always thought it was January, August. It was them two months. No, other months. And.

William Person:
But so I know every day. I knew I didn't know what day it was or what month it was. Already knew that. So I wake up every day. Look at that thing. So I was putting little things in place, just trying to deal with this, the symptoms, because I didn't know where it was.

Jennifer Norman:
And so it must have progressively started to get significantly worse. So that, and then until the point where it was really, really bad. And then I understand that some of your friends or other people that you knew had actually been suffering similarly and had actually decided to end their lives. Can you share whatever you wish to. Or whatever you don't, don't worry about it. But feel free to share whatever you want to about the experience that you had and what it was like.

William Person:
Well, I'm gonna tell you this. In the past, first, I wouldn't talk about some of this stuff because, well, I was embarrassed. Like, I get these symptoms, and so I didn't want people to see me the way I was. I didn't want people to understand what I. I don't know what I was dealing with. Like, yeah, I loved who I was, and I was embarrassed. And so with my silence allowed more people to suffer. And so that's why whatever question you ask me, I'm gonna answer that question.

William Person:
So if you wanna give me that question again, I'm gonna give it to you.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, no, I appreciate that so very much. I was just wondering because I know that at first it must be just to not be able to remember dates or individuals. And then at some point it might have gotten a lot worse. And then you were like, okay, something is significantly wrong here. And also friends around me are seemingly having the same problems. Can you describe what that was like?

William Person:
Yeah, that was a rough part of my life. Like, first of all, most of the athletes after the sport, we just kind of all go our own ways.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah.

William Person:
So we're all suffering in silence. Suffered in silence.

Jennifer Norman:
And how long. I'm sorry for interrupting. I'm just curious about the timeline. Like, how long was it until you started to notice, like, things weren't quite right? And then when things got significantly worse.

William Person:
I would say when I noticed it, like, when it got so bad that I just couldn't. I couldn't cope anymore. It was. There was a. Like, my first crash concussion was in 2002. 2012-13 is the first checkpoint where things were getting out of control. Something that was really, really, really not right. And then there was another one that went right around 2018 to 2021.

Jennifer Norman:
So like 15, 20 years. Okay.

William Person:
Yeah, so it was checkpoints. Matter of fact, this is the crazy part now. I'm probably going to miss your question. If you would bring that question back to me but...

Jennifer Norman:
That's okay. Go ahead.

William Person:
I went to see Kanye West's documentary two weeks ago, right. And I was watching it, and I always told people, like, my background was mental health. Like, my first job after college, I worked at this place. It was the first mental health facility west of the Mississippi River. So all the extreme behaviors came back for help, Right? So I'm used to dealing with depression, bipolar, schizophrenia. We had the criminally insane in there sometimes. And even we had people back then, they used to lobotomize people. And some of them, people were still alive when I first started working.

William Person:
And so I've seen it all. I've seen it all. So when Kanye West came out and he said he had, he's bipolar, I always told people, he's not bipolar, he might be schizophrenic, but I don't believe he's bipolar. But I always said that. So anyway, fast forward. I watched the documentary about two weeks ago. I believe it was.

William Person:
I'm looking at the red flags. I'm like, wait a minute, Kanye West. I did the math. Kanye West got diagnosed with bipolar when he was 40. Like, no way. That's not. Anybody who knows mental health knows you're gonna get those two, schizophrenia or bipolar, is gonna get it between 18 and 21.

William Person:
By 21, you definitely gonna have that diagnosis. But usually about 18 to 19 is gonna kind of get you. How do you get his at 40? So I'm watching this documentary and I'm watching him act extreme, just off the cuff. He's just mad, he's angry, he's fussing. Then he's straight. He's like, he lined up with my people, which is on the concussion side.

William Person:
And what you see, you hear all these people who committed suicide or if they murdered somebody, the loved ones always say the same thing. Oh, he was such a nice guy. But all of a sudden he wasn't himself or he was acting out of character. I was watching Kanye do the same thing in his documentary, and I'm thinking he lines up with concussion people. But he's a rapper. He didn't have no concussion then. I remember the song he had out, but he was talking about he had a car accident, broke his jaw. His jaw was in the back of his mouth and he almost lost his contract, Right. So I said he had a concussion. And then the bells just went off.

William Person:
In his documentary, he mentioned about the medicine he was taking to make him feel bad. I tried to take medicine too. When I got... Things got so bad and I realized it made me worse. It made things worse. So that medicine is for a healthy brain, is not for a compromised brain. It's not going to work. It's going to trigger some stuff.

William Person:
And so I listened to what he said and what he was not saying. And with this being my background, I'm thinking, oh, my God, I know. I think Kanye West has been misdiagnosed. I believe this is his concussion stuff. Because nobody, first of all, nobody gets that diagnosis at 40. And so actually, when I came home that night, I plotted out his issues. The 10 year point where it kicked in at 2012.

William Person:
I did the math and I did the second part of the math and then I looked and I actually was able to predict the year he had his car accident. Based off of when he was diagnosed. Yeah, based off his diagnosis and everything that he had said, like the. His checkpoints. And I was like, it was 2000 or it had to be 2002. Went online and looked it up. Oh, yeah, right there. And so this thing, it looks like so much other stuff. So most people, they get misdiagnosed or they're not getting diagnosed at all.

William Person:
Like, for me, I've been seeing doctors for years. I thought mine was diabetes. It didn't make sense because I was a clean eater. I've always been a clean eater. So I'm thinking. But with me not being able to get up out of the bed, like every night before I went to bed, I put a thermos of coffee or bottle of Coca Cola or Mountain Dew on my nightstand. Otherwise I'm not getting out the bed until three o' clock.

William Person:
And that was a pattern that I had. I had to do that. Otherwise I was not.

Jennifer Norman:
You needed some caffeine in order to be able to take that in the morning to wake up.

William Person:
That was absolutely every day.

Jennifer Norman:
Wow.

William Person:
Every day. It was, it was a pattern. And then once I drink that, then I could go to my book, figure out what day it is, what, what month we're in. And it was just. It's just a cycle. But I really think most people, they're not getting a diagnosis because, like, for me, the doctors, I've been seeing them for 10, 15 years and they were checking my blood. Never check the brain. Never.

Jennifer Norman:
Very interesting. And so then at what point did you perhaps talk to some of your other sled mates or other folks that were in your industry to say, you know what? I believe that this is causal. I believe that this is something that has been happening because of what had occur while I was actually on the bobsled team. And I'm just curious if anybody had ever issued any warnings about any of those dangers and what the equipment was like. I'm just curious if there were any safety. What were the safety precautions that were put in place?

William Person:
There was no safety precautions. No safety precautions. The only ones are put in now is because I filed a class action lawsuit and I'm forcing it to know what I told the judge. I said, you know, it's too late for me, it's too late for a lot of my teammates, but we can save that next generation. So, like, they're fighting. They don't want to warn the people. It's like. But I don't understand that.

William Person:
Like I'm saying, you see what it's done to us. We've lost too many people to suicide. Like, we have to warn them on our next generation.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, I think I was just curious about whether or not you had spoken to any of your former teammates or anybody from the industry to put those links together and say, you know what? I believe that this is causal.

William Person:
No, it's like everybody was kind of sweeping it under the rug from the legal standpoint. Like, nobody really wanted to talk about it. The athletes, they were kind of like me. Like, there was an article that was written called Sledhead, written by the New York Times by a gentleman, Matthew Ferdinand. Like, that article really diagnosed me. But the truth is, like, when I read it, I literally got on my knees and thank God all the symptoms missed me. And I sent it to my family. They circled some things and sent it back.

William Person:
And the first thing I saw was light sensitivity. And that's why I wore my glasses a little bit tinted because now I'm. I'm sensitive to lights, smells and sounds. So lights, I gotta stay a little bit tinted. But yeah, without. And I told everybody the same thing. Take that article, share with your loved ones and then call me back after you done that. And each time the loved ones was like, hey, wait a minute.

William Person:
And they went down that list like it was. It's like clockwork. It's. It's the same stuff over and over and over. Is this different variations of it? But yeah, but most of the athletes were like me. Like, we didn't see it on ourselves. You can see it in other people. Like that person's weird or they're doing.

Jennifer Norman:
You know, you can't see. It's very hard to know what you're up to. You have to have somebody else tell you you're not acting the same way.

William Person:
Like, for me, I'll be honest, you know, I try to throw it, put the truth out there. My girlfriend at the time, or my girlfriend now, she from New York, let's put it that way. And she talked. She has a loving family. They talk on the phone all day, every day. They're loud. And I just was driving me crazy. So during COVID I bought this lake house because the truth was I was preparing to go there to die.

William Person:
Like, I thought it was my time. Because when I was walking, the ground in front of me was doing this all the time. Then I had the vertigo that kick in. I had the migraines. You just. No quality of life. You can't get out of the bed. No energy.

William Person:
And so I bought this place. And I was living in Tarzana at the time, and I was getting lost in my own neighborhood. All I was doing was going up to like the Reseda Boulevard, make a left. And now I'm down at Gelson's. Like, I began to get lost in my own little neighborhood on a little 15 minute walk. And so I bought this place. I said, okay, I'll be safe here, worst case scenario, all I could do is walk through here to the lake. There's nothing else around here.

William Person:
I'm secluded. And so I bought that place. And so anyway, when my girlfriend was yapping on that phone one day, I just lost it. I was like, I, we might have to break up. I went back to the lake house. I need some peace. And when I got there, I just relaxing. And that's when the Sledhead letter showed up.

William Person:
Now, that letter just outlined what my teammates were going through before they committed suicide. And then the ones who are still here, like, some of them have Parkinson's and different ailments. And that's when I read the letter was like, oh, God, everything missed me. So when I sent that letter to my girlfriend and she circled some stuff and sent it back, first thing I saw was the noise sensitivity. I was like, it's the whole reason I was over there in the first place. Then I went down that list and I lost it, man. I was just like, I checked everything on that box except the Parkinson's. But the truth was, it's that letter came at the right time because I didn't.

William Person:
I'm sure I didn't have much time left. I was at the end.

Jennifer Norman:
So the author, the journalist who wrote that article must have been informed by other sledders that this was happening. And it was attentive enough for him...it was interesting enough for him to say, this also needs to be known because we are seeing it in boxers, we are seeing it in professional NFL players. There are class action lawsuits and settlements which are going back and determining that there was indeed negligence about the harms and the dangers of concussion and whatnot. And so they were able to settle. I think hockey players, the NHL also had a settlement. And a lot of them are recognizing that this is something that needs to be said.

Jennifer Norman:
It needs to be warned to young children and to their parents about the potential risks and dangers of having these impact, sports sledding included, which a lot of people would never really think about. But, yes, I think that that is. It's very important for us to know about and to also recognize that there is so much more that we can do in medicine to be able to get even more clinical trials of certain treatments. And we'll talk about one in particular in a moment, but certain treatments, so that when a traumatic brain injury or a TES Traumatic Encephalopathy Syndrome diagnosis is made, then there can be a medical necessity for these types of treatments, and then it can be covered by insurance because unfortunately, there are a lot of unknowns and there are no FDA sanctioned treatments for things like CTE. And I did also want to just give a little bit of a tutorial on CTE, because that is definitely something that's been in the headlines a lot when it comes to, particularly with traumatic brain injury for athletes and veterans. But CTE, it stands for Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. This is a progressive brain condition that's linked to repeated head trauma, causing symptoms like memory loss, impaired judgment, mood changes and aggression. Symptoms often can appear years or decades after the trauma, with diagnostic certainty only possible after a brain examination.

Jennifer Norman:
And while not all head injuries lead to CTE, even sub concussive hits may be damaging and contribute to the disease's development. And so it is a progressive brain condition characterized by brain atrophy and specific abnormalities. And a lot of the issues are movement difficulties, poor muscle coordination, problems with memory, attention, planning, judgment, mood swings, depression, anxiety. And the unfortunate thing right now is that there is no definitive diagnosis that's available for CTE while a patient is alive. The CTE diagnosis happens postmortem with a brain examination during an autopsy to identify that there is actually a tau protein that has been pretty much showcased inside brain tissue. And so there are a lot of researchers now, luckily, that are trying to get to a place where we can have brain images and some diagnoses during life. And I think that they are close to it. But right now there still is no definitive diagnosis, but I think that it's actually been diagnosed post mortem in more than 90 former NFL players and in dozens of of other athletes.

Jennifer Norman:
There are some clinical criteria for traumatic encephalopathy syndrome, which is TES. And so what you can do is if you do suspect that you have CTE, or if you meet criteria for TES, then you can be seen by a doctor. And they will probably give you treatments for some of those symptoms. Like if you are feeling depressed, they might give you an antidepressant or have you go to therapy for cognitive behavioral treatments and things like, things like that. But as far as specific treatments for the brain injury, those are not yet FDA approved. Now, when it comes to certain things that are being looked at for CTE, there are some unique alternative methods that are being looked at, such as supplements, light therapy, and one in particular that I know that you're very passionate about, which is HBOT, hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

Jennifer Norman:
So, William, I would love for you to share your experience with, with HBOT, essentially tell us the story about how you learned about it, which I think is kind of interesting. And then what happened from there?

William Person:
Well, before we get on, maybe I take one step back.

Jennifer Norman:
Sure.

William Person:
I had one of my teammates who was Pavlik Jovanovic, he committed suicide. And I forgot what year it was. But he was one of the catalysts for this thing because he would call me sometime. He wanted to be a writer. And when I first came to LA, I was optioning projects around and stuff. And so he called me. I would give him advice. And so what I used to think was just creative writing.

William Person:
It's only been like, a few weeks that I've realized, like a few weeks ago that I realized that it wasn't creative writing. His mind was already slipping because when he called me the very next time, he was speaking his gibberish, where he. I couldn't understand anything he said. He was. He got so frustrated, he hung up the phone. And. And I told myself every day, I gotta get this guy some help. I just kept saying it over and over to myself.

William Person:
Eventually, I get the word that he went to his family's factory. Then he hung himself for me, since mental health is my background. And I said I was going to help him, and I didn't. So I felt responsible, partially responsible for his death. Like, I had that guilt on me. It was just. It was crippling to think about him, you know.

Jennifer Norman:
I'm so sorry.

William Person:
Yeah. And so two things happened when they checked him. He was in stage four of CTE. So now all this stuff that we're talking about has a name. Like, we. Now I'm looking at all the diagnosis, everybody who's struggling, it all lines up with what he has. And so that's kind of how I got where I was.

William Person:
But the other part of that is, like, for me, like, when I felt so guilty, the only thing that I finally got some relief from that once was when I knew he was at stage four. I couldn't do anything to help him at stage four. That's number one. And number two, like, I was literally crawling around my own apartment at the time. I couldn't help him because I needed help. I had already taken my bed mattress off the frame and put it in my living room. And it was shortest point between the kitchen in the bathroom. So I can. If I needed to, I can crawl. And that's how I was living.

William Person:
And so here I am trying to help somebody else. And, like, no, but you can't. You can't help anybody. Like, you gotta get help yourself. That's where I was at, like, I was at the lowest point of, like, I was just praying for death every day. Like, please, Lord, it's just not another day like this.

William Person:
And because I was a counselor, like, I couldn't kill myself because I saw what that does to families. And I don't want to leave my family with that burden. And so I was like, God, okay, it's me and you. I'm gonna have to ride this one out.

Jennifer Norman:
But thank goodness for your experience that way.

William Person:
Yeah. Because all the. Yeah. I used to teach all my clients this one thing, like. And it was, like, on cruise control. Like, I would tell them, like, if suicide is a good, good idea today, it'll be a good idea tomorrow. And so then I get to tomorrow, it's same stuff going on. I'll say, okay, I really want out, but if it's a good idea today, it would be a great idea tomorrow. So it always bought me another day.

William Person:
And it just. That's how I made it through that. So when I finally got a chance to do some research where I could comprehend, because, remember, I'm struggling with reading, writing, math. At this point. I found a video with Joe Nemeth. He said he used hyperbaric oxygen to reverse his symptoms. And I was like, I have what? Like, I couldn't find anything else.

William Person:
What were the doctors talking about? This, like. And so I went and tried it, and the craziest thing happened. I was in this chamber for one hour. A company down in Orange county let me do a for free. No big deal. Go in there. When I come out that chamber, my glasses were slightly tinted just because of the lights. So I went to grab these to put them on and took them off. Put them on. Took them off a few times.

William Person:
And he looks at me and he's like, what's wrong? I was like, I don't know. Everything's kind of like, in 3D. Colors are bright. Probably I don't need my glasses right now. And he's like, oh, you one of those guys? Well he said, you're one of those.

William Person:
And I was like, okay, here come the salesman. He's going to try to sell me this $25,000 machine. I just bought a house I can't afford for the machine like this. Oh. But he was right. Some people get immediate relief. And some people get, like, they need, like, two sessions a day for 30 days to get that relief.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah.

William Person:
For me, it was immediately. So I was. My cloudiness that was there was gone for six days. I went back to. End of the following week it took my clients away for nine days. So I'm thinking, oh, my God, it wasn't a placebo. It ain't psychosomatic. This thing is helping me. It's real.

William Person:
The problem now came in. It's like, how do you buy a machine like this? Because if not, it's $200 an hour getting that machine. And if I need to do 30 sessions, I mean, yeah, 30 sessions in a month. Like, man, I can't afford to do that. So anyway, by the time I got a chance to get my old machine, I was already so cloudy again. I was back where I started.

William Person:
It was like I never had a treatment before. But when the machine showed up and I put it up, put together, got in it, I slowly just came back. Yeah, it's just changed my life now. So now, like, I can talk. Like, two years ago, we couldn't have this conversation.

Jennifer Norman:
Really.

William Person:
Yeah. And I got some videos on my. I have a TikTok channel just dedicated toward living with CTE symptoms and how to get around it. Like, I went back to find a place last month for that I want to rent out so I can open up this complimentary CTE Wellness Center. And I was gone for more than 30 days. So on my way back, I was suffering. Like, I couldn't hardly get the words out. It's like there's a screen inside my forehead.

William Person:
I could see the words, and sometimes I can read them off, or sometimes I just can't get them out. Like, it's brutal. It's. When you get that way, it's brutal, and it's just. And that's why I think a lot of these guys are like, you know, they're taking our lives. Because when you get there. Yeah. And you can't communicate with people.

William Person:
You can't. Like, from around my friends, like, if they ask me a question, I can answer it, but I'm not going to volunteer any information because I just don't have the ability. And so that's what they're dealing with. Yeah. And then the other part of that is I put out a video. Do you see that guy who went to the NFL office and shot the. He tried to shoot the NFL office up about a month ago. He left a suicide, though.

William Person:
Yeah. Yeah, he left a suicide. No, he said he knows he has CTE, so he goes up there, he does a mass shooting. Right. And they check his brain. And it came back last week. He was right. He had it on that day.

William Person:
I made a video because for social media. And I was like, guys, I know we see our athletes doing this stuff. I said, but that's not the ones we should be as concerned about. I said, it's the military guys who come back with the same thing. Because what it does, like your brain, My brain was always telling me it's time to die, it's time to go suicide. Suicide. Yes. It's kind of listening loop.

William Person:
It's like non stop. And so imagine it's a beautiful day outside. I go outside and it's just beautiful. Then your brain is telling, oh, it's a good day to die because it's so beautiful out here. So you stuck in this loop, it's a constant, like. And so that's why these guys are killing themselves or killing, Killing someone else. Like, when you get fixated on that part, if you allow it to take you over, take over, you, you know you're going to do it. So our military guys, remember they're the best trained soldiers in the world.

William Person:
So they're already in that killing mode. And their brain tells them to kill. Yeah. And so in that video, I said, guys, we need to get ahead of this because there's going to be a wave. You can quote me. I said, there's going to be a wave of military killings coming. And then I, I mentioned it to the judge the next day at court, the next day and on a court steps, I said it again. So people heard it, it's on video.

William Person:
And I said it to people live. So three days later, military guy goes into a bar in Montana. He does a mass shooting, kills four people. Now he's hiding in the woods. The following week, another guy goes on army base, one of the military base, I'm not sure what branch, he kills some of his people. Now, last Sunday, a guy who went into the church, shot that church up. He was a veteran as well. He shot up the church and he burned the other part.

William Person:
So they were still trying to recovered bodies because people were missing. So it's like something we have to, we got to get a. Yeah, yeah. And then for me, like, or I found out the military has the same issues, same treatment. Before I started this thing, it was about helping my teammates. And I was like, we got to get to this other population too. Yeah.

Jennifer Norman:
Well, thank you for bringing visibility, awareness and concern for anybody who's suffering from these kinds of brain injuries.

Jennifer Norman:
Hit subscribe right now for more stories and inspiring conversations with me, Jennifer Norman, the host of The Human Beauty Movement Podcast.

Jennifer Norman:
I did want to take a moment to help educate everybody about HBOT, since that is something that has helped you. And I'm going to put the link to another interview that I have just recently done with Dr. Jason Sonners, who is the founder of HBOT USA. Really, really smart guy and knows just about everything that there is about HBOT. And it's interesting because it does show promise for treating symptoms and signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy. And it does so by helping to increase oxygen to the injured brain tissue.

Jennifer Norman:
So it'll help to reduce inflammation and promote healing. Unfortunately, right now it is still considered an orphan therapy in mainstream medicine, but it's. There are a lot of strong suggestions and some emerging evidence suggesting that it can improve cognitive function and reduce symptoms like headaches and enhance neuroplasticity in people who are suffering with TBI and symptoms consistent with CTE.

Jennifer Norman:
William, can you describe after you started using it and you said after the very first session, one hour, you started to feel a little bit of relief or something changed? How long have you been using it and how long was it until you actually got your own chamber? And how long, like, what kind of protocol do you use now in order to maintain yourself?

William Person:
Well, my question, do you want the PG version or do you want the raw truth? I don't know what your...

Jennifer Norman:
I want raw truth. This is, this is marked explicit. Go for it.

William Person:
Okay. The first night when I took the hyperbaric, right, I like I said, I could see things. Everything was beautiful again. I came home, I laid on the couch, I fell asleep. I woke up at about. It was about 7 o' clock when I fell asleep. I woke up at about 9:00. And I had one of the worst migraines.

William Person:
I always have migraines. They never know when they come. You probably when they show up. They're just. Ever since my first crash, I've been having them. So, like, I just know what to do. Just don't do nothing. Put your feet up.

William Person:
Find the dark. And so here I am, I'm. I'm sitting here and I'm thinking, oh my God, I messed up. This hyperbaric oxygen is probably destroying me. Oh, and that's what I was thinking because, like, this is where it gets a little raw. When I woke up when I had that migraine, I had an erection. Those are two things that don't go together. So.

William Person:
So I was like, okay, what is it? Why? I said, nobody's ever said I got a migraine. Let's go make love like that. Don't work like that. Like. And I didn't know and so I wouldn't climb in bed. It's about midnight. And I woke up in the morning and the headache had gone down. Erection was still there.

William Person:
And so I'm thinking, okay, it's doing something. It has done something.

Jennifer Norman:
Blood flow!

William Person:
Yeah. And so for the next few hours, it was just getting. Everything was easing up. And by the next day, like, my cloudiness was gone. Like, I'm thinking, what? I don't recognize this place. Like, this is. I'm. I'm seeing colors and I'm seeing.

William Person:
Wow. I'm just recognizing things I've driven past and walked past for years that I don't remember being there, you know. And yeah, the second day, I went back, same thing. Nine this time. No. No migraine, no. No erection or anything. But nine days of clarity.

William Person:
And so when I wind up placing the order for the machine, it took about a month or two to come about. It was. It took a while. So by the time it showed up, I was already back where I started at. But for once, for once and forever, like, I. I had hope. Like, I knew what this machine was going to do when I started.

Jennifer Norman:
So you went once and then you decided that you wanted to buy it or did you have multiple sessions? You had two sessions, and then you decided that it was for you. Oh, wow.

William Person:
Well, the first session, it cleared my cloudiness for six days. I went back the second time and tried it. It cleared it for nine days. So now, man, this thing is what they can say, the bees knees. Like, it was working. Like, I was not gonna go without that. But the problem was like, that I ran into like, now I gotta come up with $25,000 to buy this machine, right? They had just bought this house, this lake house I bought.

William Person:
And so I don't have it sitting around anymore. And so my family, like, my dad was like, I'll, you know, I'll just give you the money. I'm saying, nope, I'll move some money around. Eventually I'll do it. But by the time. I don't know how much time went by, but I was. I didn't do it when I should have done it. Next thing you know, I was back in the darkness again.

William Person:
And then my dad, my girlfriend had been talking to my dad, and I woke up one day and checked my account, it was 20,000 extra dollars in there. And my dad was like, go get the machine. You know, and so, yeah, I got the machine, but it took two months to get here. And by the time I got here, like, I was back layiing on the floor again. I was out of it. And. But no, it really, like I said two years ago, we couldn't have this conversation.

William Person:
Oh. Also, if you look at my old pictures, I don't have hair. I was always bald. I always buzzed my hair. I didn't think my hair would still grow. I think. I don't know if the machine did it or what, but...

Jennifer Norman:
Wow! Look at your locks!

William Person:
Yeah.

Jennifer Norman:
People would go use it just for that!

William Person:
Yeah. There are people actually online, on my social media, they be trying to. They trying to insult me. They're like, is he wearing a wig? The biggest compliment I ever got in my life. I'm like, yeah, the wig. But, yeah, it's just that thing, it's just changed my life. I tell people all the time, I don't sell them.

William Person:
I don't have a deal with anybody. I don't have an endorsement deal. I'm not. And I tell everybody, I said, try it. Try it before you buy one. Don't go spend that money. Try one first.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, I mean, I know that Dr. Jason Sonners said if everybody knew what I knew about HBOT, there would be HBOT stores on every street corner. They're just absolutely, absolutely incredible. And they just need to continue to do more refinements and more research to, you know, help to understand what the right pressures and the timings and all of those things, because there are some nuances that go along with high pressure versus low pressure, et cetera. But he's doing such incredible work around that, and so are others.

Jennifer Norman:
So tell us what your sessions are like now that you have your own machine. Are you in it every day? Multiple times a day, or a couple times a week? What do you do?

William Person:
Well, starting out, I was gung ho. Yeah, I'm in there five days a week. Like, but I promise you, like, after a while, it became a chore. It's like anything else. Like, sometimes you just don't want to do it, you know, And I found myself having longer breaks in it. But normally for me, as long as I do at least two, three sessions a week, that's all for, like.

Jennifer Norman:
And how long are you doing it for?

William Person:
Usually I do 90 minutes.

Jennifer Norman:
90 minutes. Okay.

William Person:
Every now and then I'll do 30 or 45, but usually it's 90. I do 90.

Jennifer Norman:
And you have it there at your, at your place?

William Person:
I don't have a choice, man. Like, for me, most people, whenever we get this permanent relief, like, I don't, like, I, you know, If I go 30 days without it, like, or maybe a Little bit shorter. Like, I'll start to. I'll start to feel the effects of it.

Jennifer Norman:
So your hope is that you will be able to get people who are suffering to have free treatments, particularly athletes as well as military, as you said. Is that right?

William Person:
Absolutely, yeah. And it has to be for free, otherwise they will not show up. The dollar amount on this stuff is just too expensive. It's too expensive and people just, if you get, like, for me, when I used to run facilities, I had great insurance, but now they're like, I don't do that work anymore. I can't. I have the worst of the worst insurance.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah.

William Person:
So almost like they're not going to cover anything. So like. Yeah. So even if hyperbaric was something that insurance will pay for, I guarantee you my would not, you know, so. Yeah, but it's, it's one of the things, like you, once you see what's going on and you see the recovery and you feel it, like, there hasn't been a person who's tried it that I've retold about it, who hasn't come back, like, oh my God, I'm. My level is better now. Like, oh my God. Thank you.

Jennifer Norman:
Well, William, I am so glad that you found relief that you have gotten into such an incredible recovery and that you're spreading your experience, word of your experience, to help share all that has happened to you with such great vulnerability. I know that you said like before you were so embarrassed to even talk about this. I know a lot of people are still embarrassed to talk about mental health issues, trauma, things that have happened to them. But you know what? This is part of life and we're okay with that. We're okay with being there for each other. Because we all go through this sometimes, some more than others, for sure. But folks like William are here to say, you know what? You're not alone. I care about you. I want you to know about this. I want you to be informed.

Jennifer Norman:
Before you start any kinds of sporting events or any kinds of sports that are going to be potentially dangerous for you, just go in with your eyes open. And then to the industry, let's continue rallying and advocating for treatments, cures, research, clinical trials, all of these things that can help help those that are currently suffering because, yeah, a lot of lives can be saved.

William Person:
Absolutely.

Jennifer Norman:
Well, William, I want to thank you so much for being my guest today. This was such a great conversation. I really learned so, so very much. And I really think that you're a special individual. I really appreciate all the work that you're doing.

William Person:
Thank you. I just hope that, you know, maybe your people like, you know, please find our crowdfunding. We just, we're providing free complimentary. I'm not trying to collect a salary or anything like that. We just want to get the equipment. I'm providing the building. We got to build it out and offer free service to help everybody so they can get the relief that I got.

William Person:
I'm going to put them through the same thing that I'm doing unless until we find better, you know, and it's so far, everybody I've sent through it come back with the same thing. You know, it's. And it's, it's simple and it's quick and it's not like you're going to go, you know, spend your like six months in treatment or. No, it's none of that. And this doesn't make sense. And you go in there, take a nap and you wake up or watch a movie in there and you come out and you just. Life, you get your life back.

Jennifer Norman:
Amazing.

William Person:
Yeah, I haven't seen it not work for anybody. I'm the only one I know that doesn't get the permanent one so far, but also have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of concussions from the sport. So I'm the worst case scenario. If I can make it out, everybody should be able to make it out.

Jennifer Norman:
There is hope. Thank you so much.

William Person:
Thank you.

Jennifer Norman:
Thank you for listening to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast. Be sure to follow rate and review us wherever you stream podcasts. The Human Beauty Movement is a community based platform that cultivates the beauty of humankind. Check out our workshops, find us on social media and share our inspiration with all the beautiful humans in your life. Learn more at thehumanbeautymovement.com. Thank you so much for being a beautiful human.