Warning: This article contains graphic content which some readers may find distressing.
Shocking photos show just what vaping did to a teen’s lungs as doctors had to cut out pieces from them.
Yeah, you read that right, the lad’s lungs got so bad, surgeons literally had to chop pieces out.
LeeRay King began using disposable vapes when he was 14, partly because of a bit of peer pressure, hiding his habit from family for over a year.
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"I didn't like it at first but then got hooked on it within the first week,” the teen, from New Zealand, explained. "I was heavily vaping from 14 to 16. I went through about four disposables in a week. I would vape all day every day.”
The now 17-year-old didn’t ‘realise how bad it was’ at first but was massively addicted.
But in August last year, LeeRay woke in the middle of the night in excruciating pain on his left side and was struggling to breathe.
He was rushed to hospital where tests revealed it was caused by a pneumothorax. This is a condition where air leaks into the space between the lung and the chest wall, causing it to collapse.
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His mum, Kylee Jope, ‘burst into tears’ at this news as she watched her son ‘keeled over’, also in tears due to the pain.
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Over the next four months, his left lung collapsed another four times and surgeons ended up performing a pleurodesis. This is a procedure where a strong adhesion is created between the lung and the chest wall to prevent the re-accumulation of fluid.
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But when this failed, LeeRay underwent another procedure to remove a lining of the chest wall before undergoing a third surgery.
It was during this that doctors removed a damaged, black chunk of the teen’s lung, which the mum believes was all down to his years of vaping.
The shocking photo shows the cut-out bits of lung in a sealed bag, all brown and shrivelled up.
Kylee said: "When we picked it up, LeeRay pulled it out and we were both like 'oh my god'.
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"It was the damaged piece of the lung that they had removed.”
The mum added that they plan on burying the piece of lung at home as a ‘native tree’ as they now want to educate others of the potential health risks.
"I never realised vapes could do this. They advertise it to help give up smoking. You're pretty much intentionally drowning your insides,” Kylee said.
"Seeing my son go through that was horrifying."
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LeeRay said the ordeal made him realise he had ‘fully damaged’ his lung.
“It was because of vaping and how much I was doing it a day,” he explained.
And after nearly losing his life due to the multiple lung collapses, he is eager to spread awareness of the dangers of vaping.
"I actually went and talked to one of the primary schools near where I live. I don't want them going through what I went through,” he added.
"It was a pain that no one at a young age should be going through. I would tell anyone don't do it. I'll never touch a vape again."
Jess Battison