22-Year-Old Has A Warning About Vapes After Narrowly Escaping Death

FORT MYERS, Fla. —

A 22-year-old narrowly escaped death after a vape-induced lung injury, and now he has a warning to share with anyone who chooses to smoke one.

Max Alonzo first started vaping during his freshman year of high school; he never imagined it could potentially cost him his life — but that is exactly what happened.

Alonzo said he would never take something like walking his dogs for granted again.

“My dogs are two American bullies named Daisy and Dallas,” he said. “They’re my babies.”

Just last month, he almost took his final breath. It all started with a pain in his lungs.

“I think it was two days before I came into the hospital,” Max said. “My lungs starting to hurt a little bit to breathe, and I was just having fevers back-to-back.”

Doctors rushed him from the emergency room into the intensive care unit. That is one of the final things he remembers that day before waking up over a week later.

“My fingertips started turning right purplish,” he said. “And then that’s when I started going into more of a panic with my breathing.”

Doctors had to put him into a medically induced coma.

“His oxygen levels were going lower and lower,” Lee Health pulmonologist Shyam Kapadia said. “And when your oxygen levels get low like that, you could end up getting brain damage with low oxygen levels.”

Doctors had to sedate Max to put large tubes down his throat, which connected him to a ventilator for five days. That machine did all his breathing for him.

“There were moments where we weren’t sure if he was going to make it, but truly, we were just lucky that we got to him when we did,” Dr. Kapadia said.

Lee health doctors on Kapadia’s team diagnosed Max with vape-induced lung injury.

“Putting a vape into your mouth can end up getting one of these tubes shoved down your throat, and I think that’s really an important thing that people should be aware of,” Kapadia said.

Kapadia treats many patients with lung damage due to vaping. He said choosing to pick up a vape is a life-threatening decision.

“Vapes can contain all kinds of different chemicals that our bodies aren’t used to: chromium, nickel, diacetyl aldehyde,” Kapadia said.

Some vapes even contain ingredients like weed killers or herbicides.

“The scariest part is none of it’s regulated by the FDA,” he said. “And so, vape companies can put whatever they want into your vaping solutions.”

Max vows never to pick up another vape. Now, when he walks by someone else smoking one, he will warn them.

“I honestly just stopped, and I’m like, ‘Hey, I hope you know it’s not good to do that,'” Max said. “And if anything, I’ll show them a picture. ‘This is what happens, like this can happen to you.’”

He wants to be the reason why you quit — so you or your child do not wake up in a hospital bed like he did.

So here is his final warning:

“Smoking will kill you eventually,” Max said.

The vape that he was using was sent in for testing after his hospital visit. But if you are trying to quit smoking, doctors say not to pick up vaping.

Talk to your doctor for better, less dangerous solutions.