Chris WilliamsWho is Chris Williams?
Chris Williams is the CEO and founder of Hyperbaric Chambers Australia, the same company he founded some ten years ago after his son, Elijah, suffered a brain injury. The injury was so severe that doctors diagnosed Elijah's condition as permanent and irreversible brain damage.
It all began in Melbourne, Australia, in 2009, when I almost lost my two-month-old son, Elijah. It happened one afternoon when my partner went to check on him while he was sleeping in his cot and found that he had stopped breathing. Elijah was experiencing an episode of SIDS—Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
In a panic, we called the emergency line, and Elijah was rushed by ambulance to the Royal Children's Hospital here in Melbourne. On arrival, he was rushed into surgery, where he was immediately placed into an induced coma—a state in which he would remain for the next three months.
The diagnosis that changed everything.
When the doctors finally brought him out of his deep sleep, the news that followed was devastating. Our son had suffered irreversible brain damage, and there was nothing they could do. It was a challenging time, but nothing compared with what little Elijah was going through.
However, of all the diagnoses we were given that day by Australia's leading paediatric neurologists, the one that broke my heart was hearing that he had lost his sight. Elijah was blind.
I simply refused to accept what we were being told that day, and I set out to find a solution that would enable us to help our son's damaged brain repair.
Searching for an answer.
After feverishly searching the internet for an answer, I came across something called hyperbaric oxygen therapy. I was amazed to hear about the results people were experiencing simply by using hyperbaric chambers.
Excited by what I had learned, I immediately began investigating how I could get my hands on the best and most advanced hyperbaric chamber available. Much to my dismay, no hyperbaric facility in Australia would treat Elijah, and where treatment was available, we were quoted $25,000 for just three months.
After endless hours of internet research and meeting people, I knew our son would need much more than three months of treatment. As a parent, you would give anything to help your child, but $25,000 every three months was impossible for our family to afford.
“With no other option available, the only thing left for me to do was design my own.”
CHRIS WILLIAMS · FOUNDERA chamber worthy of my son.
So began our journey to find a hyperbaric chamber that could actually produce the results that researchers around the world were finding and, just as importantly, one that was affordable and could be used daily.
Yet again, we were left disappointed. No one in Australia supplied them, and I believed the chambers offered in the USA were not up to standard. Firstly, these USA-made chambers were not produced by true manufacturers, but by small companies using components such as compressors and oxygen concentrators from other companies. My view was that if these companies could not manufacture their own units and stand behind them, they were not good enough for my son.
Frustrated, I turned to a company I found online and paid $7,000 for what I was led to believe would deliver both the pressure and oxygen levels we needed. It failed miserably. With no other option available, the only thing left for me to do was design my own.
After two long and difficult years of research and development in the spare bedroom of our home, I finally had a portable hyperbaric chamber that I knew would do the job needed to achieve the results we wanted.
Elijah's first dive.
When the time came for Elijah to take that first “dive,” my wife joined him inside to help calm and soothe him. But there was no need—he loved it. Equipped with his iPad and the other activities we had placed inside to amuse him, he never once refused or showed any signs of distress.
We sent him four metres below sea level that day and saturated his little body with 97% life-giving oxygen, delivered in a very special and industry-leading way.
Gradual and subtle progress.
The results we saw were gradual and subtle. Initially, he slept better, and his behaviour improved. He seemed more peaceful, and his muscles did not ache or hurt as they had before. Slowly and incredibly, he began to mend and heal. Elijah improved in every aspect and, like some miracle, began walking and talking almost like any other little boy his age. All the things they said he would never do again, he began doing one by one.
And if you are wondering, yes, he also regained his eyesight. That's right—he can see! If you ever meet him, you would think he was a normal, cheeky little boy.
The Eclipse Elite was born.
After seeing the amazing results with our son, there was only one thing left for me to do: quit my job—which I did. And so, the Eclipse Elite Hyperbaric Chamber was born.
That same year, I took the chamber I had designed for little Elijah, named it the Eclipse Elite, and began full-scale production, manufacturing 30,000 units a year. It is now the biggest-selling portable hyperbaric chamber on today's market and is sold worldwide.
Throughout this amazing journey, I have always felt that there would come a time when I would help others help themselves and their loved ones.
Director · Hyperbaric Chambers Australia
