He is 22 years old and has just started a new life. According to his family, doctors said he had only a 1% chance of survival. His lungs collapsed when the vaping intensified and he needed a double transplant.

Due to severe abdominal pain, he had to go to a consultation on October 18, 2023. At the clinic, Jackson Allard was hospitalized due to low oxygen levels, according to the New York Post.

The young man from North Dakota was diagnosed with double pneumonia and “his condition worsened, so he was transferred to Minnesota.”

He was so serious that, according to Jackson’s grandmother, Doreen Hurlburt, “a doctor said he had a 1% chance of living.”

Telemundo News reported that North Dakota doctors informed family members that the young man “was suffering from parainfluenza, a virus that can cause respiratory infections. “His condition led to pneumonia and then to acute respiratory distress syndrome, a potentially fatal injury caused by fluid buildup in the lungs.”

When they took the x-rays, they couldn’t even see his heart. It was all white. That means the entire lung was filled with fluid.

Doreen Hurlburt, Jackson Allard’s grandmother

Jackson’s condition deteriorated so dramatically that doctors decided to put him on life support, the New York Post reported, citing the Wahpeton Daily News. The young man fought for his life and for medicine, the option for survival was a double lung transplant.

He remained connected to artificial respiration equipment for 70 days, said Telemundo, a media outlet that reported that Jackson received his new lungs in early January 2024.

Truths About Vaping: Is It As Harmful As Cigarettes? What teens don’t want to know

I vaped all the time

The grandmother said her grandson developed his symptoms because of his terrible vaping habit. He started smoking electronic cigarettes between the ages of 16 and 17. Then he started “intense vaping,” reported on Telemundo.

“You need to stop vaping, we told him,” Hurlburt said. Over and over the woman said, they insisted, but the boy replied, “It’s better than cigarettes.” To the grandmother, Jackson “was a great vaper. “I vaped all the time.”

Desperate, Doreen Hurlburt tried to explain to him, according to the New York Post: “Well, they said, with cigarettes you’ll have lung cancer in 50 years, in 5 years, if you vape, they’ll see you with permanent lung damage. ”

Hurlburt stated, according to Telemundo, that “doctors suspected that the use of electronic cigarettes prevented him from recovering from his first viral infection.”

Scientists still don’t fully understand the relationship between vaping and lung disease.

While in the hospital, his heart began to fail and his grandmother became nervous. ‘I thought we were going to lose him. “I was sure he wasn’t going to survive this, but in my mind I kept imagining him coming home,” she told KVLY-TV, according to New York media.

Combining vaping with traditional cigarettes triples the health risk

A double lung transplant was performed

The young man, in the words of his relative, “had no idea how bad it (vaping) was for him.”

“The day before he was intubated, he said, ‘I had no idea I could get this sick.’” The double lung transplant “saved Allard on Jan. 1,” the New York Post reported.

That outlet confirms that the boy’s life “will change forever, both in the short and long term, as he will never be able to drink or smoke again.” Ultimately, “he will need another transplant later.”

(JO)