A Decade of Vaping
Raymond Dehn from Buffalo, New York, began vaping at 15 when stores sold him products without ID checks.
By his late teens, he was also using cannabis THC pens, a habit that lasted nearly a decade.
Sudden Collapse
On September 13, while vaping in his car, Dehn felt a “searing pain” in his back.
“About a minute later, while walking in the mall, I passed out,” he recalled.
At the hospital, an x-ray revealed his lung had collapsed.
Doctors’ Observations
Dehn said physicians couldn’t identify an exact cause but noted similar cases.
“The only common denominator between all of us was that we vaped,” he explained.
A Warning to Others
After four nights in the hospital with a chest tube, Dehn has quit vaping. “Every few minutes I get this overwhelming fear it’ll happen again… I want to advocate so strongly for other young people to be aware.”