A young Ohio woman was so addicted to vaping that she showered and slept with an e-cigarette — until she nearly died when her lungs collapsed and black coke poured out of her.
Now, she’s warning others to avoid vaping. Her message comes amid estimates that there are 82 million vapers worldwide.
“I wouldn’t wish what I went through on anyone. I feel grateful to be alive,” Jordan Brielle, 32, admitted to Kennedy News and Media.
The Cincinnati resident noticed a decline in her health in November 2023 when she began to feel a noticeable heaviness in her chest. She switched to vaping in 2021 after smoking cigarettes since she was a teenager.
She soon became addicted to the devices, spending $500 a week on her vaping habit, even as she struggled with breathing problems.
“I had a terrible cough and went to the hospital two or three times a week for help. I had little to no voice,” Brielle recalls. “They sent me home every time. It felt like there was 80 pounds of pressure on my chest alone. I have never felt so sick in my life.”
She remembers that her body was swollen from her ankles to her knees, her skin turned gray and her mind could not focus.
“Nobody knew what was really wrong with me. I felt like I was dying,” Brielle said.
She contracted COVID-19 and pneumonia, but still vaped.
In May, Brielle was rushed to hospital after her partner found her unresponsive in bed with “black mucus” coming from her nose and mouth.
“He said I was panting, but I couldn’t breathe. I was unresponsive and had a weak pulse,” she described. “He started sucking sputum from my nose and mouth to try to give me CPR. He called 911 because CPR wasn’t working. I don’t remember anything.”
Doctors immediately put her on a ventilator and her family was told her left lung had collapsed and her right lung partially collapsed.
After aspirating two liters of black fluid from her lungs, doctors placed her in a medically induced coma for 11 days.
“My body was trying to force out the vapor liquid inside my lungs, which was like concrete. It was black and bloody,” Brielle explained.
“In [the] hospital, they told me that my lungs were extremely damaged from smoking and steam,” she added. “It felt like there was a burst balloon in my lungs.”
Brielle said she had minor brain damage due to a lack of oxygen to her brain, and doctors warned her it could happen again if she didn’t stop drinking.
“They told me if I waited any longer, I wouldn’t be here. Since then, I haven’t touched the heat,” she said.
“I would say to anyone else: Quit while you can,” she advised. “Do it for your health, your family, your life, your lungs – whatever motivates you, use that reason and stop.”
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