A FITNESS fanatic was forced to have part of his lung hacked off after horrifying images revealed it to be riddled with black spots.
Sean Tobin, 20, blames the disturbing health problem and subsequent surgery on vaping.
The mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter took up the habit in 2018, sometimes getting through one 5,000-puff disposable device every week.
He claims that his e-cigarette basically "never left his hand", only occasionally to use THC oil and smoke weed.
Sean kept this up for five years until July 20 when he felt a stabbing pain in his back while at work in Tilton, New Hampshire, in the US.
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The apprentice electrician initially wondered if he had pulled a muscle, but a visit to A&E confirmed his right lung had collapsed.
Sean was taken to Concord Hospital where doctors cut between his ribs and inserted a chest tube to push out the trapped air that was crushing his organs.
When the lung failed to heal naturally after two days, surgeons chopped a portion off then stapled in back together.
The afflicted organ was then glued to his chest wall to prevent it from collapsing again.
Disturbing photos taken by an endoscope before the surgery show the surface of Sean's lung covered in black spots.
Doctors told him these were carbon deposits caused by vaping, he said.
"It was really scary, because I felt like I'd done it to myself," Sean added.
"As soon as I saw it, I got very upset with myself. I was very sad and thought, 'F***, I did this to my own lung'.
"It was years of me just not treating my lungs how they should be treated."
Sean claims that the ailment came as a huge surprise as he had always been healthy and in "really good shape".
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He visited the gym up to seven times a week and was training as an MMA fighter, so is kicking himself for ever taking up vaping.
Sean, from Manchester, New Hampshire, said: "My cardio was so good and I was so healthy. I shouldn't have started."
He was discharged from hospital on July 27 and is now facing a month-long recovery period before he can begin to enjoy normal life again.
It was really scary, because I felt like I'd done it to myself.
Sean Tobin
"I have to take it really easy and I can't lift anything that weighs more than 20lb," he said.
"I train very consistently for MMA and that's my whole life.
"My job is also very physically demanding so I can't work either. I've just got to sit still, and that sucks.
"I don't know the long-term effects I'm going to have from this, and whether my other lung is going to be okay."
Sean, who has vowed never to vape or smoke again, wants to use his ordeal as a warning to others.
"I was working out and running and had better cardio than everyone in my gym, and it still happened to me," he said.
"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 did.
"You never think something is going to happen to you until it does."
E-cigarettes allow you to inhale nicotine in a vapour rather than smoke.
They do not burn tobacco or produce tar or carbon monoxide - two of the most dangerous elements of traditional smoking.
Thousands of people in the UK have quit smoking with the help of vapes, but the effects of their long-term use is not widely understood.
Experts also fear thousands of young people are taking up the habit early, and potentially exposing themselves to knock-off devices.
The NHS recommends gradually reducing both the frequency of vaping and the strength of nicotine in the e-liquid for those looking to kick the habit.
