Joe Yates
A woman has warned people to quit vaping 'any way you can' after she was left fighting for her life when her lungs collapsed and filled with 'black fluid'.
Jordan Brielle, from Cincinnati, US, first swapped smoking cigarettes to vaping in 2021.
However, she became addicted and the 32-year-old began forking out $500 a week on e-cigarettes.
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The residential assistant also said that her vape pen would go everywhere with her, including to bed when she went to sleep and when she went into her shower.
However, in mid-November, Brielle began to notice that she was struggling to breath and she began 'feeling a heaviness in her chest'.
"At first it was just a respiratory infection or bronchitis so I kept going to the hospital with breathing problems." she said. "I had a horrible cough and was going to the hospital two or three times a week for help. I had little to no voice.
"Each time they would send me home. It felt like there were 80lbs of pressure just laying on my chest. I'd never felt so sick in my life.
"My body was swelling up from my ankles to my kneecaps. I kept going to the hospital because I was progressively getting worse."
Brielle continued: "My skin was turning grey, I couldn't focus, I was very discombobulated. It was hurting to walk. I could barely do anything.
"Nobody knew what was actually wrong with me. I felt like I was dying."
Despite catching COVID and pneumonia, she says she still continued to vape despite her health issues.
In May, things took a scary turn when her partner found her unresponsive with 'black mucus' dripping out of her mouth and nose - and she was promptly rushed to hospital.
"When he went to wake me up [before a night shift], he said there was black mucus coming out of my mouth and my nose. He said I was gasping but couldn't catch my breath. I was unresponsive and had a faint pulse." Brielle said.
"He began sucking the sputum out of my nose and mouth to try and give me CPR. He called 911 because the CPR wasn't working. I don't remember anything."
At the hospital, doctors suctioned 67oz (2L) of 'black' fluid from her lungs before placing her into a medically induced coma for 11 days, while hooked to a ventilator.
They also told her family that her left lung had collapsed, while the right had partially collapsed.
"There was at least two litres of fluid on my lungs. In hospital, they told me my lungs were extremely damaged from smoking and vaping." Brielle said.
She also says she has been 'left with a minor brain injury due to lack of oxygen to her brain'.
Brielle says she feels 'grateful' to be alive and that the doctors 'really saved her life'.
"They told me if I'd waited any longer, I wouldn't have been here. I haven't touched a vape since," she added.
"I would say to anyone else quit any way you can. Do it for your health, your family, your life, your lungs - whatever motivates you, use that reason and stop.
"I wouldn't wish what I'd been through on anyone else."