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A young Virginia nurse claims he cheated death after a pod-a-day vaping habit caused his lung to collapse.
Jonathan Belcher, 22, awoke one morning at his home in Covington, Virginia, with excruciating pain behind his left shoulder, worsening with each shortened breath.
Terrified, Belcher was driven to the hospital’s emergency department, where it was revealed that his lung had collapsed, a by-product of lung trauma that caused an air leak in the cavity surrounding the lungs.
Doctors were able to insert a chest tube to drain the air, but they saw a hole in the lung that had to be stapled closed.
Belcher claims doctors attribute the injury to e-cigarettes, which have addicted millions of Americans to nicotine.
Jonathan Belcher, 22, started vaping a nicotine e-cigarette when he was 17. He vaped the equivalent of 20 cigarettes daily (about one Juul pod)
Belcher said the short drive to the hospital was terrifying, and when he arrived doctors told him to “call your mom, your lung has collapsed and it’s really serious”
Jonathan said, “It felt like my shoulder was a balloon about to burst. I was really short of breath and every time I breathed my shoulder hurt but I didn’t realize why’
With a piece of his lung surgically removed and emotionally traumatized by his brush with death, Mr Belcher has vowed to avoid the very potent e-cigarette that caused his condition.
He recently said after the April ordeal: “The whole experience was terrifying, painful and so bad that I will never again touch a device that produces smoke…I was really looking death in the eye.
“I completely understand that it is very difficult to quit and the bottom line is that it is addictive.
“But after the pain I’ve been through, the trauma it’s caused, and the problems it’s caused in my life since then, the best advice I can give is to try and quit, think this will happen to you.”
He had been vaping since he was 17 and usually consumed as much nicotine as 20 cigarettes.
For reference, a single Juul pod contains 20 cigarettes worth of nicotine, although it’s not clear what brand Belcher used.
The pain that morning woke Mr. Belcher, who said it “felt like my shoulder was a balloon about to burst.”
He would later learn that the pain was caused by a collapsed lung, or pneumothorax, which caused air to leak from the lungs into the surrounding cavity or pleural space.
The air in the pleural space increased the pressure on the lung so that it could not expand as much as it normally does during normal breathing.
Mr. Belcher said, ‘The moment they said, ‘you can call your mother, your lung has collapsed and it’s really serious,’ I burst into tears.
“I’ll never forget when I called my mother and the way she screamed and cried.”
To fix the leak and relieve pressure on the lungs, doctors inserted a chest tube to drain the air from the space between the lungs and the chest wall. Usually, the problem heals on its own when the lung inflates again.
But the hole in Mr Belcher’s lung required surgery to repair and part of the organ had to be removed as it had ‘died’ in the process due to lack of oxygen.
He said, “I told the surgeon that if he was ready for surgery, I was ready for surgery. I was in so much pain that I wanted something that could fix it.
Pneumothorax is quite common and usually survivable. About 20 per 100,000 men and 6 per 100,000 women experience it each year, and taller, thinner people are more prone to it.
Typically, pneumothorax will heal once the air around the lungs has been evacuated using a chest drain
Doctors had to surgically repair the hole in Mr Belcher’s lung, forcing them to remove part of the organ that had died from lack of oxygen
Mr Belcher, who gets short of breath doing normal daily activities like talking on the phone, has sworn off e-cigarettes
It is usually caused by a ruptured air bladder, or “bleb,” that sends air into the space around the lung. It is believed that chronic vaping could lead to the formation of blisters on the lungs, while strong inhalation of a vapor can rupture an existing bladder.
The exact physiological effects of vaping e-cigarettes, which contain a highly potent mixture of nicotine, propylene glycol and glycerol, and concentrated flavors, are still being researched.
But claims that vaping is a safer alternative to smoking traditional cigarettes because it removes the carcinogenic tars and smoke from the equation are increasingly questioned.
Cases like Mr. Belcher’s are not unique. There have been countless during the past years.
Vaping has become an acute problem, especially among young people and those who have never smoked cigarettes — a major blow to e-cigarette manufacturers’ purported goal of switching smokers to safer vaping.
In 2019, 1.97 million never-smokers between the ages of 18 and 29 reported vaping, compared to just 1.37 million current smokers.
But by 2021, vaping among young never-smokers will increase by more than a third to 2.68 million.
Jonathan was discharged on May 9 and claims the trauma of the incident was worse than the pain as he now often struggles to sleep.
Although his lungs can now function on their own, Jonathan claims they will be weaker for the rest of his life.
Jonathan said: ‘The pain hasn’t been the worst since I got home, it was actually the trauma.
“It affected my sleep, because I woke up with lung collapse. Now I am having a very hard time sleeping and waking up all night sweating profusely.
“It’s gone from being able to do normal things without getting out of breath, to having to sit down after a phone call to catch your breath.”