KUALA LUMPUR, September 20 — As hospitalisation cases linked to vaping continues to rise, a teenager is reported to be bedridden and unable to breathe due to serious lung damages caused by vaping.
A 19-year-old boy from Pennsylvania, US who recently graduated from high school has spent the last few days in the intensive care unit after his chest X-ray showed his lunges had become severely congested with solidified vape oil.
According to Metro US, Anthony Mayo fell ill last week and experience shortness of breath followed by continuous coughing.
As his conditioned worsened, Mayo was rushed to the hospital where doctors discovered that his oxygen ranges have been at a dangerously low 36 per cent.
According to his father, Kieth Mayo, doctors have warned him that at the age of 19, Anthony has the lungs of a 60-year-old, two-pack-a-day smoker.
The teen was also told that his lungs are likely to be scarred for life.
Kieth said his son had been vaping for approximately two years and had tried flavoured oils such as blue raspberry, Swedish fish, cotton candy, cinnamon toast crunch, among others.
“He also vaped THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol) on occasion, which is the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.”
Kieth added that his son vaped two to three times a day outside their home without realising how detrimental it could be to his son’s lungs.
The teenager is now admitted into hospital where doctors put him on 100 per cent oxygen to permit him to breathe and assist him expel the oil in his lungs.
Anthony is one of the many patients with a history of vaping who have been hospitalised in recent weeks.
It was reported last week that another teenager, Adam Hergenreder, from Illinois, US was hospitalised due irreparable lung damage merely two years after he started vaping.
The 18-year-old, who started his vaping habit at the age of 16 was told by doctors that images of his lungs from a chest X-ray look like those of a man in his 70s.
According to a report by CNBS, an outbreak of a deadly vaping-related lung disease has sickened 530 people and killed seven in recent weeks.
Quoting an official from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of people who have fallen sick so far has dramatically risen from 380 patients identified last week.
