NEED TO KNOW
Nathan Edmunds began vaping at 13 and became addicted, refilling his vape up to three times daily
His lung collapsed unexpectedly at 19, requiring hospital treatment and prompting him to quit vaping
Edmunds hopes his story will warn teens about vaping risks, calling it “not worth it” despite its appeal
A teen who’d been vaping since he was 13 was hospitalized with a collapsed lung — and even admitted to vaping in the hospital — until doctors told him his health issues were caused by the habit.
“I thought it was cool and some of my friends were doing it so I picked one up, tried it and it just stuck about,” Nathan Edmunds, now 19, tells Kennedy News and Media, adding, “I got addicted to it very quickly.”
Nathan Edmunds says he started vaping at age 13
Credit: Kennedy News & Media
The teen, who hails from the English city of Wolverhampton, says he would refill his vape up to three times a day, opting for fruity flavors like strawberry kiwi. He says, “I was constantly picking it up, every five minutes, having a few drags.” The device was “always in my hand or in my pocket, it was never left by itself really.”
“Just before I’d go to sleep I’d have my last drag, put it on my windowsill. When I’d wake up, I’d pick it back up and then I’d just carry on using it,” Edmunds said, admitting that the only time he took a break from the vape was when he was asleep.
He shared there were “no pain symptoms and no warning” before the night of Dec. 19, 2025 — when his lung collapsed overnight while he was asleep. “That’s the scariest part about it,” he explains. “It was just the pain from my lung collapsing woke me up at about 6 am in the morning.”
He was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance, where doctors treated the collapsed lung with a drain. “Luckily I didn’t need to have surgery because it healed very quickly,” he explained. “If the chest drain wasn’t working fast enough then they would have done a surgery but l got lucky and the hole healed itself very quickly.”
But Edmunds says even after he was admitted, “I was still vaping at the hospital.” It was only after doctors told him that his vaping habit caused his collapsed lung that “I chucked it in the bin there and then.”
Nathan Edmunds says he vaped all day long
Credit: Kennedy News & Media
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“We’re seeing a rash of collapsed lungs in younger people,” Johns Hopkins lung cancer surgeon Stephen Broderick explained in an article on the risk of vaping. “We always ask if they’ve been smoking, and they’ll often say, ‘No, I don’t smoke. But I do vape.’ Now we tell patients not to smoke or vape if they want to avoid another lung collapse and surgery in the future.”
It’s why Edmunds is sharing his story, hoping to warn other teenagers about the risks. “It’s not worth it, just to have a bit of a fruity flavour in your mouth or have a nicotine rush,” he says, admitting, “I saw it obviously happening to other people but I used to say it wouldn’t happen to me.”
“Everyone says that until it happens to you,” he says. “Pack it in before it’s too late.”
Read the original article on People