The mom hopes her son’s passing raises awareness that it’s not just ‘popcorn lung’ which can prove fatal when it comes to vapes
A mom who lost her son to vaping has spoken out in warning about the ‘false sense of security’ with vapes and why it’s not just your lungs you should be worried about.
On December 12 last year, Danny Clark from Chester, Pennsylvania, passed away at the age of 34 after vaping for little over a year.
He’d taken up vaping more frequently in October 2023 as a result of his girlfriend apparently not liking the smell of the smoke as well as believing it’s a ‘safer option’ – previously having around ‘a pack-a-day’ of cigarettes.
But then at the end of 2024, Danny’s mom, Cindi, was left in ‘total shock’ when she got a call from her older son to inform her Danny had passed away – all the family aware of is that he ‘went to bed and he didn’t wake up’.
Woman almost dies after taking up vaping
(Kennedy News and Media)
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Danny’s symptoms before he passed
The night before he passed away, Danny’s girlfriend told Cindi he was experiencing slurred speech alongside a lack of balance.
His family questioned whether he’d been drinking alcohol, however, an autopsy later revealed Danny’s organs ‘looked fine’.
It was ascertained that Danny had died as a result of suffering a sudden cardiac arrest caused by a particular element of the vapes.
Danny Clark passed away at the age of 34 (Kennedy)
The autopsy’s results
Danny’s ‘lungs didn’t look terrible’, even despite him having smoked for most of his life, and the vapes didn’t impact his breathing nor cause him to get so-called popcorn lung.
However, the medical examiner reportedly then questioned Danny’s girlfriend as to what strength of vapes he was using and how frequently he would puff away on the device.
“His girlfriend said that he would have it on the nightstand next to him when he went to bed so if we woke up [in the night] he would vape.” Cindi noted.
The medical examiner ultimately found the ‘amount of nicotine’ in Danny’s body was ‘three times the level’ and that he had experienced nicotine poisoning.
Cindi explained: “The impairment that he was showing [before he died], were all signs of the nicotine being so high in the bloodstream that it started impairing his nervous system – he was slurring his speech, and he was having trouble with balance and coordination.
“Ultimately he went to bed and it caused a heart attack.”
The mom is now taking the tragedy and trying to spread important awareness to stop it from happening to anyone else’s loved ones.
Danny’s mom warns vaping is not just dangerous to the lungs (Kennedy)
Danny’s mom’s warning
Cindi reflected that it felt like Danny and their family were ‘cheated’ as Danny thought ‘vaping was the healthier option’.
“He would have been so p***ed off [if he knew it would kill him] and I felt the same way,” she said.
She noted how much of a ‘pure form’ of nicotine vapes are, which she thinks makes them ‘so much more addictive than even cigarettes are’, while further suggesting that putting anything in your body that’s ‘not natural’ is a risk.
She said she doesn’t believe ‘the risks [of vaping] are spelled out as quickly as they should be’, adding: “I also don’t think that there’s any kind of monitoring on all of the devices and the percentage of nicotine that they get in their system.
“There’s no regulation on that at all so people are basically just getting addicted to this thing and it’s toxic and they can just keep putting more and more and more in their system without any idea of what’s happening as a result of it.”
While any cases of lung issues caused by vaping have been documented in the news, Cindi hopes to raise more awareness around nicotine poisoning, calling for tighter regulations.
She resolved: “It’s a false sense of security – people think they’re not coughing, or they don’t have pain in their chest but people don’t know what’s happening in other areas.
“[…] Something needs to be done about it. It can’t keep going on like this.”Featured Image Credit: Kennedy
Topics: Health, Vaping, US News, Parenting, Pennsylvania
Updated 12:08 18 May 2024 GMT+1Published 11:44 18 May 2024 GMT+1
Man who was given ‘1% chance of survival’ after years of vaping issues chilling warning to others
Jackson Allard began vaping at the age of 14 which led to serious health issues
A 22-year-old man, who was given a one percent change of surviving after developing a vaping addiction, has shared some urgent words of warning.
Jackson Allard, from North Dakota, was given a bleak outlook until a double lung transplant saved his life. He was initially rushed into hospital last October, complaining of stomach pain but doctors struggled to find a diagnosis and his symptoms were eventually put down to having Influenza 4 and double pneumonia.
Jackson Allard had vaped for eight years since the age of 14. (YouTube/Valley News Live)
After being rushed to University of Minnesota Medical Center to undergo a double lung transplant at the beginning of the year, it was thought that his eight year vaping addiction had led to the rapid and serious deterioration in his health.
The transplant wasn’t the way out of the woods for Jackson either, as he’s spent the first three months of this year fighting for his life and was fully intubated and put on life support, with his heart even stopping at one point.
Yet his last words to his family before being put under were: “I am scared, I don’t want to be alone.”
The 22-year-old also revealed how his addiction started young as he explained: “When I first started vaping, I was probably 14. I was pretty much non-stop doing it. I told my friend who smokes weed, I was like, ‘Be careful with that’.”
Man was given 1% chance of survival after years of vaping
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Allard’s grandmother, Doreen Hurlburt, also shared a stark warning as she explained: “At one point a doctor said he had a one percent chance of living and we said, ‘He’s fighting, he’s fought for how many weeks we’re going to give him a chance to fight, we’re not going to stop any procedures or anything’.”
She added: “Multiple doctors said, ‘If you smoke cigarettes for 50 years, we’ll see you with lung cancer, and if you vape for five years, we’ll see you with permanent lung damage’.”
Dr. Stephanie Hanson at Stanford explained: “Vaping or e-cigarette use is relatively new, so we don’t necessarily know a lot of the long-term effects of vaping and that’s honestly one of the scariest things about it.”
Researchers from the University of Texas looked at the health data from more than 40,000 people of all ages over the course of five years.
Jackson Allard has had a double lung transplant. (YouTube/Valley News Live)
At the start of the 2022 analysis, none of the participants had asthma but by the end of the study, they found that roughly ten in every 1,000 adults had developed the common respiratory condition as a side effect of vaping. Those who had used e-cigarettes in the 30 days prior to the final analysis had a 252 percent higher risk of developing asthma early in life, before age 27, compared to those who did not use e-cigarettes.Featured Image Credit: Fox News/YouTube/Valley News Live
Topics: Health, Vaping, US News
Published 16:16 11 Feb 2025 GMT
‘Vape tongue’ is the little-known side effect that experts are warning of
The list just keeps getting longer
As vapes become more popular, experts are becoming more aware of some of their drawbacks and side effects.
While many people are encouraged to pick up vaping rather than smoking due to the fact they do not contain the same toxins as cigarettes, they aren’t exactly healthy.
In fact, as they have become more common place, more research is going into the long-term and short-term health impacts they have, especially on young people.
Experts are learning more about the impacts of vaping (Getty Stock Image)
Due to young people being particularly fond of vapes, the UK government is moving to ban single use vapes from June later this year.
In the mean time, a health expert on TikTok has advised people who vape regularly to cut back ahead of this deadline.
Dr Stewart Beggs, a cosmetic and restorative dentist based in London, explained that those overindulging in vaping may get ‘vape tongue’.
What is ‘vape tongue?’
He explained that one of the lesser known side effects is losing the ability to taste and dull a person’s taste buds.
On vape tongue, experts at Healthline, noted: “While there isn’t much published scientific information about the condition, there appears to be plenty of anecdotal evidence supporting it, as dentists and other healthcare practitioners have taken to social media to warn about it.
“They are urging e-cigarette users to stop or drastically cut down their usage if they have experienced this side effect.”
https://www.tiktok.com/embed/7257577737991245082
In the video, Dr Beggs said: “So vape tongue is when you start to lose your taste because you’ve been vaping so much, and this is really on the rise because of the popularity of these disposable vapes – which have all these ridiculous flavors.
“People end up absolutely caning these vapes and it causes such a massive increase in nicotine and a really, really dry mouth that you lose your sense of taste completely sometimes.
Thankfully, Dr Beggs explained that there are simple things to counteract this side effect as he insisted it would only be temporary.
Stop / cut down on vaping
He said: “First thing, stop vaping or really cut down your vaping because that is really gonna help.”
This one is kind of self-explanatory, if vapes can cause you to have vape tongue, not vaping anymore might reduce that side effect.
Drink More Waster
Vaping has proved particularly popular with young people (Getty Stock Image)
He added: “Second thing, it can be linked to dehydration so start to drink more water and make sure you are fully hydrated. Just to see if that helps.”
When it comes to most health issues, it does really help to be better hydrated, and according to Dr Beggs, ensuring you are hydrated can help alleviate the side effect.
Clean Your Tongue
He also said: “Also clean your tongue, brush your teeth, floss, use a tongue scraper and see how much that helps.”
Dr Beggs added that, overall, better dental hygiene can also help – so get to brushing.
He closed by saying: “If this helps, cut down how much you are vaping because you don’t want to get vaper’s tongue back because you want to taste your food.”Featured Image Credit: Getty Images/Hiraman
Topics: Community, Health, News, Vaping, TikTok
Published 12:59 8 Aug 2024 GMT+1
Mother-to-be dies after she lay down for a quick nap and never woke up
Leah Roberts went to lie down for a nap and never woke up just days after discovering she was having a baby girl
Tributes have coming flooding in for a ‘loving, chatty and funny’ mom-to-be who died suddenly after going to take a nap.
Leah Roberts, 21, found out that she was expecting a baby girl just days before she died.
Leah, from Cwmbran in Wales, was five months pregnant and was extremely excited at the prospect of becoming a mom.
The 21-year-old had already picked out a name for her unborn daughter, calling her Leena-Rose.
Leah had gone for a lie down while at her grandmother’s house on August 1 after feeling unwell.
But when her family tried to rouse her they found they couldn’t, even hours later.
Tragically, Leah’s family found that she had died after going for a nap.
A cause for Leah’s sudden and tragic passing has not been shared, and her heartbroken loved ones have shared tributes to her online.
Leah died after lying down for a nap. (Wales News Service)
They said that she had just ‘wanted to love and be loved in return’.
Leah’s friend Becky Davies shared a loving tribute to her, writing: “She was the most selfless person you could ever meet in your life. By no means did she have an easy life but all she wanted was to love and be loved in return.
“Family was a massive thing for her, she would always say she was going to be a mum.
“She used to take my children out, her brothers out. She would walk into a room and no matter if she had had a bad day or not she would always ask if you were ok.
“She was just loving, chatty and just funny, she was a massive goofball with a massive heart.”
Leah had been expecting a baby when she died. (Wales News Service)
Recalling what happened to Leah, Becky said: “She had gone out in the day and went back to her grandparents’ house as she wasn’t herself. She went for a lie down for a few hours.
“Someone had come to call for Leah to see if she was going out somewhere and her grandfather went to her bedroom to try and wake her up and couldn’t.”
She added: “He went and told her grandmother he couldn’t wake her so she went into the room and realised something was wrong, so took her off the bed and started performing CPR. That’s all it was, she just went for a nap and never woke up.”
Becky has also organised a fundraiser to help cover the costs of Leah’s funeral.
An inquest into Leah’s death is expected to be opened at Gwent Coroner’s Court this month.Featured Image Credit: Wales News Service
Published 15:30 17 Apr 2025 GMT+1
Teen girl issues warning after vaping habit triggered medical emergency that left her ‘hours from death’
The 16-year-old had started smoking nicotine vapes just a week before
A 16-year-old has opened up about how she got into smoking nicotine vapes and fell so sick she was a ‘few hours from death’ in just seven days.
At the age of 15, Isabella Troncao had already been smoking legal marijuana vapes for 18 months, but when she started dating a guy, he introduced her to nicotine vapes too.
The teenager ‘vaped a lot’ socially in a bit ‘to impress the guy,’ despite the device making her ‘throat burn’.
Within just a week, she fell sick, detailing how it ‘felt like there was a 50lb weight on the left side of her chest,’ ending up ‘in so much pain‘ and unable to ‘take a full breath in’.
And when she was left unable to ‘get up to go to the bathroom’ or ‘stay awake,’ her mom and brother rushed her to St Rose Dominican Hospital in Henderson, Nevada.
Isabella had smoke marijuana vapes but was introduced to nicotine ones too (Kennedy News)
After being rushed to hospital, Isabella was reportedly diagnosed with Lemierre’s Syndrome.
Lemierre’s Syndrome ‘occurs when you get a certain rare type of bacterial infection in your throat’, according to Healthline.
“When it’s not treated, the infection can spread to the vessels that carry lymph fluid throughout your body. If it’s not treated, it can cause serious or life-threatening complications,” it adds.
Isabella said that when she was rushed to hospital, doctors warned she was just ‘a few hours from death’ as a result of her body ‘shutting down’ because she was in ‘septic shock’.
They quickly performed surgery and ‘removed one litre of fluid from her lung’.
She said the doctors told her the vaping had likely contributed to bacteria building up in her body – finding a lot particularly ‘in the back of her throat’.
The incident occurred in October 2023 and Isabella has since reflected on her near-death experience.
Isabella was ‘hours from death’ when she got to hospital (Kennedy News)
She said: “Nobody should vape, it’s a strain on your lungs and it’s making lots of people sick.”
Isabella’s mom added: “We all do stupid things but they’re marketing these vapes with fruity flavours and fancy colours – they’re worse than cigarettes.”
Isabella resolved: “I felt like it was a sign of God that I was meant to stay on this earth for a reason. It’s crazy to think I would have missed it in that small time window.
“It definitely feels like I’ve been given a second chance at life.”Featured Image Credit: Kennedy News
