Owen Wagner’s toes where severed while he was working on his farm in Linn, Mo. and the tongue of a baler fell on his toes in July 2008.

“That jack collapsed, pushed my toes on my left foot on the bottom side of that tongue about two inches into that hard packed dirt,” Wagner said.

While he lost his big toe completely, the second toe was saved at the joint and doctors reattached the third toe successfully.

He credits the time he spent in a hyperbaric chamber with helping to save enough of his toes.

Dr. Gary Baskett of St. Mary’s Health Center said the chamber is more commonly used for diabetic foot wounds, but the can also heal chronic wounds.

“With diabetic foot wounds we usually treat those after six weeks and that's with treating them with everything else you can possibly come up with [first],” Baskett said.

Patients spend two hours a day inside breathing high levels of oxygen under double the atmospheric pressure. The the chamber super-oxygenates the blood, allowing more oxygen to all parts of the body.

“We deliver a tremendous amount of oxygen to the wound bed itself,” Baskett said. “No topical treatment is going to do anywhere close to that.”

The hyperbaric chamber method is time consuming, over several days Owen spent 70 hours in the chamber and it can be expensive.

The chamber can also be used for healing bone damage from radiation treatment and skin grafts.

But despite its benefits, Dr. Baskett said the chamber is under-utilized because some doctors simply aren't aware that it's an option.

If you missed our live chat with Dr. Baskett, read the transcript below.