The vapes of wrath.
Even the young and healthy aren’t safe from the vape: A New Hampshire fitness fanatic and aspiring MMA fighter had to have part of his lung removed at age 20 after it became freckled with black spots — which he attributed to his chronic e-cigarette use.
“It was really scary because I felt like I’d done it to myself,” Sean Tobin, from Manchester, told Kennedy News and Media of his alarming complications. “It was years of me just not treating my lungs how they should be treated.
“My cardio was so good. I was so healthy and I shouldn’t have started vaping.”
The vape victim had reportedly started hitting the electronic cig hard in 2018 when he was just a teen.
“The vape never left my hand. It was very, very habitual,” recalled the mixed martial arts enthusiast, who would use it from morning until night along with occasionally smoking weed and using THC oil.
At the height of his addiction, Tobin claimed he was going through one 5,000-puff disposable vape pen per week.
Despite his unhealthy habit, the serial vaper never thought he’d experience adverse effects due to his devotion to fitness. He reportedly hit the gym up to seven times a week and was a devoted mixed martial arts practitioner.
Unfortunately, Tobin was proven wrong when he experienced stabbing pain while on the way to his job as an electrician apprentice in Tilton on July 20.
“When I stepped up into the van [for work on 20th July], it felt like I pulled a muscle in my back,” the MMA enthusiast told Kennedy News. “The tension there was pretty bad.”
Initially thinking he had pneumonia, Tobin eventually visited an urgent care center after his symptoms worsened throughout the day.
A subsequent X-ray revealed the extent of the damage.
“The radiologist read my report, and they told me I had a collapsed lung,” said Tobin, who was transferred to New Hampshire’s Concord Hospital, where they confirmed that the damage was caused by vaping.
Doctors made an incision between his ribs and inserted a tube with the goal of expelling the trapped air that was crushing his lung and chest.
When the hole didn’t close after two days, doctors were left with no choice but to perform surgery.
Prior to the procedure, surgeons outfitted Tobin’s chest cavity with a camera, which revealed that it was freckled with black dots.
Doctors confirmed that they were carbon deposits in the lung.
“It was a scary thing to see,” lamented the gym shark. “As soon as I saw it, I got very upset with myself. I was very sad and thought, ‘F–k, I did this to my own lung.”
In order to repair the damage, surgeons were forced to hack off a small portion from the top of his lung and staple it back together.
They then glued the affected organ to his chest wall to prevent it from collapsing again.
Tobin was discharged from the hospital on July 27 and has endured a month-long recovery period before he can return to his normal regimen.
“I can’t lift anything that weighs more than 20 pounds,” rued the exercise buff, who found this sedentary regimen debilitating, as he trains “very consistently for MMA, and that’s my whole life.”
“I’m an MMA fighter and was very scared that I wouldn’t be able to train for that anymore,” he said. “I’m very passionate about it and want to make a living off it one day.”
And it’s not just his hobby that’s affected.
“My job is also very physically demanding, so I can’t work either. I’ve just got to sit still, and that sucks.”
While doctors claim that he will likely make a full recovery, the patient admits that he is unsure of the long-term effects.
As a precaution, he’s quit vaping cold turkey to prevent another lung prolapse.
Needless to say, the affliction came as a surprise to Tobin, who, like many young people, felt invincible due to his youth and health.
“I was working out and running and had better cardio than everyone in my gym,” he declared. “I remember seeing TikTok videos of a guy with a collapsed lung from vaping, and I was like, ‘That’s not going to happen to me. This dude’s a bum, and I’m not.’ And then it happened to me.”
Tobin hopes to use his near-fatal saga as a cautionary tale on the perils of vaping: “You never think something is going to happen to you, until it happens to you.”
The New Hampshire athlete isn’t the first to suffer an alleged vaping-induced lung implosion.
In April, a West Virginia teen claimed that his six-year fling with automated nicotine dispensers caused his lungs to collapse four times — and made them look like he’s been smoking for 30 years.
In an effort to curb vape use among the younger set, New York state banned the sale of flavored vaping products in 2019.
