"If I kept hitting that vape pen, I'd be a goner" - Mom shares vape horror story

Hannah Roth picked up vaping to help deal with the stress of the COVID-19 lockdowns. The 30-year-old Tennessee mother of two had never touched a cigarette before turning to vaping. She thought it was a safer alternative to smoking. Roth couldn't have been more wrong about the dangers of vaping.

Last month, she ended up in the emergency room, struggling to breathe. Doctors broke the shocking news - her vaping habit had severely damaged her lungs, even worse than a lifetime smoker's. One physician was blunt: her lungs looked like they had been "fried like hot chicken" from all the vape smoke she had inhaled.

Roth's vapecapade, as she calls it, opened her eyes to vaping health risks that are only now beginning to surface.

For four long years leading up to her lung crisis, Roth couldn't go an hour without hitting her trusty vape pen. She went from an occasional vaper in 2020 to being completely addicted, consuming vapor clouds every 60 minutes around the clock like clockwork.

She told Kennedy news "I picked up vaping in the year of the 'Rona as a way to keep my cool during lockdown," Roth explained, using slang for the pandemic year of 2020 when she developed the habit. "Prior to that, I had never even puffed on a cancer stick in my life."  

But last month, that casual vape habit morphed into a life-threatening reality that made Roth confront the real dangers of vaping head-on. She ended up rushed to the ER, struggling to breathe and wheezing like she had smoked three packs a day for decades.

"The doctor came in, showed me my chest X-ray, and said, 'Do you vape? That's why you have pneumonia,'" Roth recalled. "He told me straight up - if I kept hitting that vape pen, I was gonna die pretty much. Then he grabbed my vape right out of my purse and chucked it into the trash can!"

The X-rays revealed Roth had developed a condition called "tree budding" in her right lung from years of excessive vaping. In simple terms, it meant her lung was drastically deteriorating and decaying - something doctors expect to see in heavy, lifelong smokers inhaling toxins for 40-50 years, not otherwise healthy 30-year-olds.

"It looked like a real tree with all these branches shooting out," is how Roth describes the disturbing X-ray images. "The doc said it's called 'tree budding,' which basically means your lung is rotting away. But it's not supposed to happen unless you're an oldhead who's been blazing up stogies nonstop for life."

Just weeks before that fateful ER visit, Roth was going about her normal routine - juggling life as a working mom between her receptionist job and caring for her two sons, ages 7 and 10. Then she was struck with unbearable chest pains, high fever, chills, and that telltale wheezing sound ripped straight from the pearly gates.

"At first, I figured it was just bronchitis actin' up since my chest hurt so damn bad," Roth said. "But when it kept going for days, my mom made me go to the emergency room. That's when they realized my daily vape intake had straight fritzed my lungs worse than an order of hot chicken from Scotchies."

While vaping is marketed as a "healthier" alternative to smoking, Roth's x-rays highlighted some of the real, underreported vaping health risks and vaping side effects that can occur. For years, she had been inhaling a cocktail of chemicals, heavy metals, and nicotine vapor under the guise it was safer than cigarette smoke. 

"The doc straight told me - if I kept hitting that vape pen, my lungs were gonna give out, and I'd be a goner," Roth reiterated about the dire prognosis. "Hearing that was the wake-up call I needed to quit while I was still kicking."

The dangers of vaping have been downplayed by slick marketing campaigns funded by billion-dollar vape companies. But Roth's up-close brush with lung destruction shows there are still many unknowns about the long-term impacts of inhaling heated vape aerosols daily.

"Even though I still get mad cravings sometimes, I've been chewing a ton of gum to keep my mouth busy instead of vaping," said Roth, who has been vape-free since the day her doctor trashed her go-to vape pen. "Overall, I feel a hundred times better healthwise after quitting cold turkey."

According to Roth's physician, as long as she stays completely vape-free going forward, her seriously decayed lungs have a chance to slowly heal over time. However, even just an occasional relapse back into vaping could potentially lead to permanent, irreversible lung damage.

For Roth, the choice to ditch the vapes for good was easy once she saw the money she'd save and saw first-hand what it was doing to her body.

"I had zero clue vaping could deteriorate and fry my lungs up like that," Roth said, hoping to raise awareness about the potential dangers of vaping that aren't well known. "I'm just grateful I kicked the vaping habit before it got even more un-fritzed and gnarly."

By candidly sharing her vape horror story, Roth hopes to educate others - especially teens and young adults attracted to vaping's discreet devices and fruity flavors. Her violent lung reaction highlights that inhaling any sort of chemical vapor carries risk, even if you've never smoked a cigarette in your life.  

"I never touched a cancer stick, and look what happened to me," Roth exclaimed about her vapecapade. "If my story can help prevent others from getting zapped by vaping, I'll feel like I did my part."