A man who vaped 'every 10 seconds' says that getting hospitalised with a collapsed lung was the wake-up call he needed to ditch the unhealthy habit.
Hudson Williams used to smoke cigarettes but switched over to vapes in 2019 as he thought it 'tasted better', but rather than use vaping as a tool to quit smoking, he kept going with it for another six years.
The 23-year-old had heard about some of the possible dangers of vaping but 'didn't think it would happen to him' until he ended up in hospital on 30 August after he had chest pains so severe that it 'felt like being shot in the chest with a gun'.
Rushed to the hospital, the Texas man was diagnosed with a collapsed lung, and doctors warned him it could happen again even if he quits vaping for good.
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He admitted he was so addicted to vaping that he was puffing away on it almost constantly until he was struck by the sudden pain.
"I was just sitting in the truck at work when all of a sudden I felt what felt like heartburn," Hudson explained of his lung collapsing without warning. "Within about 15 minutes, it felt as if somebody had shot me in the chest with a shotgun.
"I couldn't breathe and the pain radiated around my rotator cuff, my collar bone, my heart, the middle of the chest, my neck, my earlobe, the bottom of my lung and my back.
"My friend drove me to the hospital and when I got there they [the doctors] told me that my lung had collapsed by 10 percent."
He stayed overnight in hospital and was put on oxygen and pain medication, and reckons he was 'pretty lucky' for his lung collapse not to have been as bad as it might have been.
He said the whole experience was 'scary' and he really regrets vaping, while explaining that his doctors told him 'there was a 100 percent chance that this had been caused by vaping'.
Hudson is hoping to inspire other vapers to ditch the harmful habit before they run the risk of suffering like he did, as you might think it won't happen to you, but that's the mistake he made.
He said: "It was one of those things where it hadn't happened to anyone that I knew, so I didn't think it mattered - or that it would happen to me.
"I quit vaping as soon as this happened. It was 100 per cent the wake-up call that I needed to quit for good. I would say to anyone, don't vape; it's not cool. It's hard to qui,t and it's a lot easier said than done.
"It's a nasty habit and it's hard to get out of, but it's definitely possible."
Joe Harker