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 goo poured out of her.
Now, she’s warning others to steer clear of vaping. Her message comes amid estimates there are 82 million vapers worldwide.
“I wouldn’t wish what I’d been through on anyone else. I feel grateful to be alive,” Jordan Brielle, 32, admitted to Kennedy News and Media.
The Cincinnati resident noticed her health decline in November 2023 when she began to feel a distinct heaviness in her chest. She switched to vaping in 2021 after being a cigarette smoker since she was a young teen.
She soon became addicted to the devices, shelling out $500 a week on her vaping habit even as she struggled with respiratory problems.
“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,” Brielle recalled. “Each time they would send me home. It felt like there were 80 pounds of pressure just lying on my chest. I’d never felt so sick in my life.”
She remembers her body swelling from her ankles to her kneecaps, her skin turning grey and her mind failing to focus.
“Nobody knew what was actually wrong with me. I felt like I was dying,” Brielle said.
She caught COVID-19 and pneumonia but still vaped.
In May, Brielle was rushed to the hospital after her partner found her unresponsive in bed with “black mucus” dripping out of her nose and mouth.
“He said I was gasping but couldn’t catch my breath. I was unresponsive and had a faint pulse,” she described. “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.”
Doctors immediately hooked her up to a ventilator, and her family was told her left lung had collapsed and her right lung had partially collapsed.
After suctioning two liters of black fluid from her lungs, doctors placed her into a medically induced coma for 11 days.
“My body was trying to force out the vape juice inside my lungs, which was like concrete. It was pure black and bloody,” Brielle explained.
“In [the] hospital, they told me my lungs were extremely damaged from smoking and vaping,” she added. “It felt like there was a popped balloon in my lungs.”
Brielle said she has a minor brain injury due to a lack of oxygen to her brain, and doctors warned her this could happen again if she didn’t stop vaping.
“They told me if I’d waited any longer, I wouldn’t have been here. I haven’t touched a vape since,” she declared.
“I would say to anyone else: Quit any way you can,” she advised. “Do it for your health, your family, your life, your lungs — whatever motivates you, use that reason and stop.”