(WHTM) — Twenty veterans a day take their own lives. It’s an alarming and tragic statistic, but a new healthcare regimen hopes to reverse the pain of PTSD and depression.

The Aurelius Program at Harrisburg University is a pilot, and it’s showing promise.

“My depression is gone,” Mike O’Keefe said, who completed the Aurelius Program. “I’m just motivated. Like, I feel the fog is lifted.”

A fog that enveloped O’Keefe nine years ago after an armed robbery on the turnpike where he worked. He ran for his life from the gunman, thankfully, the bullets missed, but the pain didn’t.

O’Keefe shared his anguish with us in 2017. He was suffering from PTSD, anxiety and depression. Years of doctors, drugs and therapies didn’t help, but the Aurelius Program did.

“I’m back to normal,” O’Keefe said. “Joking. Having a good time carrying on.”

Promising results for the fledgling program that combines exercise, hyperbaric oxygen, and magnetic pulses to the skull. It is hours a day for several weeks straight.

“We had no idea about the damage it was doing to our heads,” one veteran said.

This vet drove a Navy speedboat where he was routinely slamming into waves. For he and his colleagues, the aftermath is becoming routine.

The Navy veterans were suffering from speech problems, insomnia, speech problems and outbursts. For those symptoms, these vets from across the country hope to ease at Aurelius headquarters in Harrisburg University.

“We’re seeing a lot of success,” Aurelius Human Performance Director & Researcher Audrey Johnson said.

Johnson’s collecting data from these vets, hoping to prove what she suspects. That oxygen and brain stimulation together can change lives.

“They have all these wounds and lesions on their brain,” Johnson said. “So that tissue healing and getting oxygen to that area to heal those cells, they’re still able to be healed.”

Dr. Joseph Maroon is a neurosurgeon and brain researcher at UPMC Pittsburgh. He’s also an Aurelius consultant who sees great promise.

“Every day is a Memorial Day for 20 veterans, plus or minus, who commit suicide due to depression, anxiety and PTSD,” Maroon said. “So the question is, what do you do about that.”

The private businessmen funding Aurelius hope it is the answer, and they’re not charging the veterans in the program.

“To try to move the needle with the VA,” Aurelius co-founder Anson Flake. “With our government, and just find a way to accelerate the recovery cycle for these guys before the Depression gets too significant and suicides and suicides start to take place.”

Right now, 11 states provide hyperbaric chambers for veterans battling PTSD. Pennsylvania is not one of them. Something advocates here would like to change.