In 2005 Tera Clark, 25, was hit by an impaired driver causing her a traumatic brain injury, broken neck, collapsed lung and broken bones. At first her progress was amazing, but when her recovery started to plateau, her mother decided to try Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. HOT is typically used in scuba diving accidents where the victims experience “the bends” because a too rapid ascent caused nitrogen bubbles to accumulate in the bloodstream. The therapy is sometimes used in hospitals to also help wounds heal, but this new treatment is considered “off-label” and experimental. The first privately-owned HOT facility in Arkansas has opened and this new clinic is using the therapy to treat traumatic brain injury. The treatment at The HBO Clinic in Little Rock is not covered by insurance because the clinic uses the oxygen therapy for non-FDA approved uses. For Tera Clark and her family it doesn’t matter because Tera has made significant progress. Her mother Jeana Halter said, “We are six weeks into the process now, and we've seen great improvements with memory, her cognitive skills, her ability to ambulate. Her joints have loosened up drastically. So I've been very pleased with it.” Dr. Gary Villines of The HBO Clinic said, “We can't promise that this will be of miraculous benefit, but there's enough evidence out there to show this is at least worth trying.” Dr. Villines hopes to have Tera walking unassisted within a year. Since he can treat patients in a private setting, and has less overhead than a hospital, he usually charges less than $200 per treatment.