After developing a rare lung condition, a teenager is now warning others of the dangers of vaping.
Fox 13 reported that 18-year-old Maddie Nelson, from Utah, was rushed to the emergency room after suffering from back pain and nausea. Struggling to breathe, doctors had no option but to put her on a ventilator and into a medically induced coma.
Then, three days later, on August 3, she was brought out of the coma and diagnosed with acute eosinophilic pneumonia.
This is a disease characterized by the build-up of white blood cells in the lungs and can be caused by a number of things including drugs and certain toxic substances.
Once Maddie was out of the coma, she was given steroids to reduce the inflammation in her lungs, but she is still relying on oxygen at night.
This comes three years after the teen took up vaping, which she is convinced is the cause of her illness.
At first, she vaped zero-nicotine liquids before moving onto 3mg of nicotine.
In the video below, a teen explains how vaping allegedly led him to the ICU:Sharing her story online, the 18-year-old wrote: "I am sharing my story so you all are aware that there is something crazy in these pens that is not safe and almost cost me my life.
"I used to just tell myself it won't happen to me, but it can and will happen to you too.
"Take my advice, don't smoke, don't vape."
Maddie said of vaping: "When you inhale the moisture [from e-liquids], it's just creating the perfect environment for bacteria to grow inside your lungs and for infection to start.
"And that is basically what happened."
But despite the possibility of a connection between Maddie's condition and vaping, it has been medically proven that vaping is significantly less dangerous than smoking. Research carried out by Public Health England last year found it to be 95 per cent less harmful.
