LeeRay was horrified by what doctors found (Picture: Kennedy News and Media)
LeeRay King was just 14 when he first picked up a vape.
The teenager quickly became addicted, going through ‘four disposables in a week’. He confesses to vaping ‘all day, every day.’
One night, LeeRay woke in agony and was rushed to hospital, where the devastating impact of his habit was revealed.
Doctors eventually had no choice but to remove some of LeeRay’s lung — and in a bid to make him see the error of his ways, gave him a bag containing parts of his own blackened organ, as a reminder of just how much trauma he’d put his own body through.
The now 17-year-old says he’ll ‘never touch a vape again.’
It was August 2024 when LeeRay, from Wellington, New Zealand, woke up in the middle of the night, struggling to breathe and with excruciating pain on his left side.
Part of LeeRay’s lung was black, brown, and scarred (Picture: Kennedy News and Media)
His mum, Kylee, shares that she woke up to hundreds of missed calls from her son: ‘I decided to take him to hospital and he keeled over in the front seat of the car and burst into tears in excruciating pain.’
When the pair arrived at the hospital, doctors conducted a number of different scans, ultimately finding that LeeRay has a very large pneumothorax. In non-medical terms: his left lung had collapsed.
Over the course of the next four months, the teenager’s left lung collapsed a further four times.
In an attempt to repair the damage, doctors eventually performed a pleurodesis — a procedure that creates a strong adhesion between the lung and the chest wall to prevent the re-accumulation of fluid.
LeeRay had just finished college when he fell ill (Picture: Kennedy News and Media)
However, this wasn’t enough to solve the problem entirely.
So, LeeRay then underwent procedure to remove a lining of the chest wall. known as a pleurectomy.
But it was the final surgery that had the biggest impact.
During LeeRay’s third time going under the knife, doctors removed a damaged chunk of his lung — handing the teenager a bag of his own blackened organ, as a reminder of just how much trauma he’d put his own body through.
Cleaning supervisor Kylee has called the entire ordeal ‘horrifying.’
‘When we picked it up, LeeRay pulled it out and we were both like “oh my god”,’ she shared.
She added: ‘I never realised vapes could do this. They advertise it to help give up smoking. You’re pretty much intentionally drowning your insides.’
LeeRay was equally shocked: ‘[What they found] made me realise I had fully damaged my lung. It was because of vaping and how much I was doing it a day,’ he says.
What are the signs your lung has collapsed?
A sharp or stabbing chest pain that worsens when you inhale.
Pain that radiates to the shoulder or back.
A dry hacking cough.
If a tension pneumothorax is present, you may also experience a rapid pulse and large veins in the neck may stick out, or the skin may be a bluish color due to a lack of oxygen.
In October 2023, 12-year-old Sarah Griffin suffered a lung collapse and spent four days in an induced coma due to her heavy vaping habits.
The young girl from Belfast had actually first started vaping when she was just nine, regularly hiding her vapes from her mum by cutting holes in the carpet.
Sarah, who also has asthma, now has permanent damage to her lungs –the consequence of getting through a 4,000-puff vape (a regulation vape contains 600 puffs) in just a few days.
Now that LeeRay has also endured a near-death experience, he wants to do whatever he can to stop young kids from suffering a similar fate.
‘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.’
‘It was a pain that no one at a young age should be going through. I would tell anyone don’t do it.’
The family have decided to bury LeeRay’s blackened lung in the garden, so that they can finally now put this awful experience to bed.
What happens to your lungs when you vape?
Vaping heats a substance and allows you to inhale the fumes – with vapes, the most common ingredient is a mix of nicotine and flavours.
Dr Stephen Broderick, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine said: ‘We think that some of the vaporised elements of the oil are getting deep down into the lungs and causing an inflammatory response.’
One of these inflammatory responses is popcorn lung, a rare form of lung disease – also known as bronchiolitis obliterans.
A build-up of scar tissue in the lungs ultimately results in scarring and inflammation in the smallest parts of the airways.
This leads to symptoms such as coughing, shortness of breath and finding it hard to breathe.
There’s currently no cure for popcorn lung, but there are treatments to help alleviate symptoms.
Collapsed lungs are also common among those who vape heavily. They are caused by air blisters at the top of the lungs which can burst.
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Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk.
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