The lung of a 17-year-old girl bursts after vaping, equivalent to smoking 57 cigarettes a day.
A teenage girl ended up in the hospital after her lung ruptured from vaping, which amounted to smoking 400 cigarettes a week.
Mark Blythe received a distressing call when his daughter Kyla, 17, collapsed and turned blue during a sleepover at a friend’s house on May 11.
Kyla, who thought vaping was harmless, experienced a collapsed lung due to excessive vaping, causing a small air blister known as a pulmonary bleb to burst.
After nearly going into cardiac arrest, Kyla underwent a lengthy surgery to remove a portion of her lung. It took two more weeks before she was discharged.
“It was terrifying for me. I’ve cried like a baby. It was horrible to watch. I’ve been with her the whole time,” Mark said.
“It was life-threatening. It really did threaten her life because she was so close to having a cardiac arrest on that Friday. They said she went blue. They thought she’d gone.”
Kyla had been vaping since she was 15, consuming an entire 4,000-puff vape each week, equivalent to smoking 400 cigarettes or 57 a day. The experience has now made her fearful of the habit.
“When I was 15, it started becoming a popular thing. All my friends were doing it. I just thought it would be harmless and that I would be fine,” Kyla said.
“Every day I would use the 4,000-puff ones and I would go through them in about a week. I honestly thought they were harmless and wouldn’t do anything to anyone, even though I had seen so many things about it. I just feel like everyone has that same view.
“But now I won’t touch them. I wouldn’t go near them. The situation has really scared me out of them.”
Alarmed by his daughter’s near-death experience, Mark wants to warn others about the dangers of vaping and urges young people to quit.
“I’ve been to hell and back with Kyla over the last couple of weeks. I just put it down to vaping, they can’t put it down to anything else but vaping that’s caused this,” Mark expressed.
“They think it is the throw away vapes that burst these blebs and puncture a hole in your lungs. Apparently it’s a big thing now. He’s done a lot of operations like this.”