A NURSE claims vaping left him “looking death in the face” when he needed an agonising op to remove part of his collapsed lung.
Jonathan Belcher said he started puffing at 17 and developed an addiction so severe he was smoking the equivalent of 20 cigarettes a day.
Kennedy Newsand MediaJonathan Belcher suffered a collapsed lung after being addicted to vapes[/caption]
Kennedy Newsand MediaThe 22-year-old pictured with an e-cigarette, which he started buying aged 17[/caption]
But last month, the now-22-year-old woke up breathless and with excruciating pain in his left shoulder like “a balloon about to pop”.
He said it made him feel like he was “dying”.
Terrified Jonathan was driven to hospital where he broke down in tears when doctors told him his left lung had a hole in it and had collapsed.
Trapped air was beginning to crush it and his heart as part of the condition known as a pneumothorax.
Surgeons then inserted a tube to push out the air, but when his lung failed to heal naturally, they removed an upper quarter to close up the hole.
The assistant nurse, who claims he was “looking death in the face”, admits he now struggles to sleep.
His weakened lung also leaves him feeling winded after simple tasks such as phone calls.
Jonathan, from Covington, Virginia, US, said: “I woke up dying [that morning].
“I was terrified, and I just knew something was really wrong but I didn’t know what.
“It felt like my shoulder was a balloon about to pop.
“I was really short of breath and any breath I took made the shoulder hurt worse.
“It was only two minutes to the hospital, but that was the longest and scariest two minutes of my life. I was truly looking death in the face.
“The moment they said, ‘you can call your mum, your lung has collapsed and it’s really severe’, I just broke down crying.”
Jonathan said his mother “screamed” down the phone as she was so worried about her boy.
Now recovered, the healthcare worker has vowed never to touch a vape again.
He said: “It sounds horrible, but I would really use any vape I could get my hands on. It was just so addictive.
“I smoked the equivalent of about 20 cigarettes a day.
“On my medical records, it’s labelled that I had a spontaneous tension in the thorax from vaping.”
The whole experience was terrifying, painful and so bad that I will never touch a device that produces smoke ever again.
Jonathan Belcher
Jonathan, who was discharged on May 9, said his lungs are able to function on their own but they will be weaker for the rest of his life.
The former “addict” wants to raise awareness about the potential dangers of using the devices so no one else has to go through the same “trauma”.
Jonathan said: “I have a really hard time being able to sleep – I wake up all through the night with really bad sweats.
“I’ve gone from being able to do normal things without getting winded to having to sit down after a phone call to catch my breath.
“I’ve absolutely quit vaping.
“The whole experience was terrifying, painful and so bad that I will never touch a device that produces smoke ever again.
“I completely understand that it’s very hard to quit and the bottom line is it’s addictive.
“But after the pain that I went through, the trauma that it created and the problems that it has made in my life since, the best advice I could give for trying to quit is think that this will happen to you.”
Kennedy Newsand MediaJonathan in hospital for a life-saving operation[/caption]
Kennedy Newsand MediaThe nurse claims vaping left him ‘looking death in the face’[/caption]
Kennedy Newsand MediaJonathan with mum Jodie, 45, and dad Johnny, 50[/caption] Read More