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In 2021, Mark Smith got a really bad case of COVID.
The Harrison County Jail administrator and chaplain was sick for months: He couldn’t eat, couldn’t move, couldn’t sleep. He started spiraling into a state of depression and anxiety.
“I couldn't understand what was going on with me,” he said. “And that's the scary part about anxiety or depression, really. You can't understand what's happening to you.”
He went to the doctor, but nothing was working for him. Then, he met Dirk Harkins, a local proponent of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.
TMS is a relatively new treatment that uses magnetic pulses to stimulate nerve cells in the brain. It’s FDA-approved for people with medication-resistant depression and anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder and for those trying to quit smoking.
As a veteran, Smith got the treatment for free. Ohio is one of just a few states to offer a government-funded TMS program for veterans, first responders and law enforcement officers with mental illness.
“It was the worst experience of my life,” Smith said. “But TMS was a total godsend.”
In many rural parts of the state, however, TMS is not easily accessible. Harkins has a plan to change that.
‘Everything here is extremely limited’
For a while, eTMS Ohio had locations in Youngstown, Bowling Green and Barnesville, about 30 miles from Smith’s hometown. But those sites closed after state budget cuts this year.
Most of the six centers left are clustered near the state’s population centers, not rural spots like eastern Ohio’s Harrison County.
“We live in a place where you can't buy a pair of Nikes or Levi's,” Smith said. “Everything here is extremely limited. So if you look at it in that kind of picture, you know that our medical needs would also be limited.”
“I'm no different than a guy that lives in Cleveland, so why are all the machines there, but not here?”Mark Smith
Now, veterans and first responders in more rural, less densely populated parts of Ohio have to travel even further distances to get TMS, which isn’t always possible given that the treatment requires multiple sessions a week.
“When I was in the midst of this nightmare that I was in, I'm no different than a guy that lives in Cleveland,” Smith said. “So why are all the machines there, but not here?”
Dirk Harkins wants to change that, and he has an idea on how: with mobile TMS units.
Bringing mobile units to town
Rural communities don’t always have the population to sustain a permanent physical location for TMS treatment, Harkins says, but a mobile unit would allow people in remote places to still get care.
“From here to Belmont County to Massillon, I have four or five locations where people wanted to come and I could take [a mobile TMS unit] right to their backyard,” Harkins said.
The idea is gaining traction: Missouri already has a few mobile units, and Ronnie Shumard says some could be coming to Ohio soon too.
He works with Operation Zero — a brand new initiative that aims to equip rural practices with TMS technology and mobile units.
“Our mission is just to treat more people and to lower the suicide rate,” Shumard said. “That a task that we all need God for, right? There's so many people across the country that don't even know about this service.”
Shumard is working with Harkins to bring mobile units to eastern Ohio. They’re hoping to hit the ground in early 2026.
“My goal is to get this to all these rural areas,” Harkins said. “We’ve got to help every single person we can. Can't leave anybody behind.”
Smith hopes the effort works. He says veterans and first responders in cities like Caddis, Carrollton and Coshocton should have the same treatment options as the people in Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus.
“I don't know what makes us different than any other place other than the population,” he said. “It's still the same people with the same problems dealing with the same life issues that everybody else is dealing with, just on a smaller scale.”
