A striking image has highlighted the harmful effects vaping can have, particularly on adolescents.
LeeRay King, from near Wellington, New Zealand, started using disposable vapes at 14 and soon found himself ‘heavily vaping’ until he was 16.
He shared: “I got kind of peer pressured into vaping. I didn’t like it at first but then got hooked on it within the first week. I was heavily vaping from 14 to 16. I went through about four disposables in a week. I would vape all day every day.”
In August 2024, LeeRay was hospitalized due to severe pain on his left side, revealing the damage his vaping had done to his lungs.
Tests showed he had a pneumothorax, where air leaks into the space between the lung and chest wall, causing a collapse. His left lung collapsed four more times, requiring surgery to perform a pleurodesis, which ultimately failed, leading to another procedure called a pleurectomy.
Doctors later removed a damaged portion of his lung, and a photo displays the extracted piece, brown and shriveled.
LeeRay’s mother, Kylee Jope, commented: “When we picked it up, LeeRay pulled it out and we were both like ‘oh my god’.”
“It was the damaged piece of the lung that they had removed. We’re actually going to bury it at our house as a native tree. We were shocked. I never realized vapes could do this. They advertise it to help give up smoking. You’re pretty much intentionally drowning your insides. Seeing my son go through that was horrifying.”
LeeRay and his mother are now warning others about the risks associated with 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 stated.
“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.”