Boy nearly has to have his foot amputated after being impaled by vape
A teenage boy was almost forced to have his foot amputated after it was impaled on a vape pen.
Harley Bennett, 13, was out with his friends when he attempt to crush the discarded Elf Bar vape with his foot 'like a Coke can' underneath a subway in Cirencester, Gloucestershire.
The 13-year-old was left in agony after the four-inch e-cigarette pierced through his £200 trainers into his skin.
After his mum, Samantha Robinson, 34, received a call from one of Harley's friends, she rushed over and took him to an emergency ward at Gloucester Royal Hospital.
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The schoolboy was forced to have a two-hour operation on his foot, followed by skin graft surgery the next day.
"Two weeks after it happened, the surgeon said there's a high chance of infection and a high chance you might lose your foot. That was what scared me the most," Samantha said.
"I felt terrified and sick. I was more scared for Harley and of his reaction and how he was being than of my own.
"Seeing how scared he was - and he wasn't sleeping - [meant that] it was more about trying to concentrate on how he was feeling."
The surgeon suggested that there was a high possibility that Harley could lose his foot as a result of infection in his cracked heel bone.
"It was really shocking. I felt sick, scared, I didn't know what was going on," Samantha added.
"They [the hospital] hadn't come into contact with anything like this before. It was the first they'd seen of it.
"It must have been very shocking for them as well. I had all the nurses asking to look at the pictures I had because they were so gobsmacked.
"The size and width of the puff bar went the majority of the way in, and jammed into the top of the heel bone, which cracked it. It was a clean cut of flesh gone."
Nine weeks after the incident, the parent had to change and clean her son's bandages daily, taking Harley into hospital every few days to have the wound checked.
Harley's grandmother Andrea Keen, 56, said: "He [Harley] was wearing £200 shoes which have a really thick sole on them. It went right through that, right through a sock, right through his flesh, up to the bone. That's quite shocking.
"If someone was running around with bare feet, that could go right through [the foot]. People have got to learn to dispose of vapes properly.
"It's been nine weeks, and you can imagine that after being told he could lose his foot - it was awful. He's only 13."
Harley said: "I wasn't thinking. I just don't know how to explain it. I just stamped on it. It just went straight into my foot. It was very painful.
"The recovery process was very stressful. The moment where the doctor told me I could lose my foot was very very stressful.
"The pain is much better now."
Anish Vij