Simah Herman, 18, became an anti-vaping advocate after surviving a severe lung illness that caused her to be placed in a medically induced coma – one of several recent incidents linked to vaping.
You hid your vape underneath your pillows yeah and you would come and smoke how often oh i couldn’t go longer than like 10 15 minutes without hitting it it was so addicting i brought it with me everywhere i went seema herman never expected that what she thought was a harmless habit vaping would end up nearly killing her i took two days for my lungs to fail and i
Almost died the 18 year old going viral with this photo from her hospital best a tube still pumping oxygen to her failing lungs in her hands a call-to-action asked for like a pen and paper because that was the only way i could communicate and i wrote i want to start a no vaping campaign that was the first thing i did when i opened my eyes seema’s story is just the
Latest in a landslide of incidents linked to vaping sparking what many officials are calling a national health crisis what we’ve seen in the course of the past let’s say month is an increased number of people coming in with respiratory problems as a result of vaping so far the centers for disease control report more than 450 possible cases in 33 states of lung
Illness associated with vaping and six deaths have been confirmed in california illinois indiana minnesota oregon and now kansas last friday the cdc issued a stark warning if you are vaping no matter how old you are you should consider stopping like i didn’t think of myself as a smoker the vaping just makes it seem like it’s nothing like you’re doing nothing
Wrong seema was in high school when she started vaping nicotine i was 16 the first time 15 and even the first time i bought it at the smoke shop i went in and i was like can i get a pack of jewel pods and they were like how old are you and i said 22 and they were just like okay it ended up becoming my oxygen i couldn’t live without it i needed it all the time
Every day but because all of my friends were doing it all the time and no one else had symptoms that i had i couldn’t like i wouldn’t even have imagined that maybe this is killing me sima was an active healthy teen she’d been dancing for years even making dance team her freshman year of college but as her vaping habit increased adding in cannabis her ability to
Dance disappeared she was vaping a cartridge a day that’s like smoking the same amount of nicotine as a pack of cigarettes in one day her parents had no idea their daughter had become hopelessly addicted this healthy dancer dancing 12 hours a week stopped dancing because of it stop living because of it stop going to school in college because of it sima says she
Was feeling sick all the time over a year i lost like 50 pounds without trying 50 pounds yeah by this summer seema had stopped going to her college classes she says her health issues were getting worse but no doctor could nail down what was wrong did you not tell the doctors that you’ve ached i actually did i made sure that every hospital every er every doctor’s
Office i went to i told them that i smoked but you never thought i can’t breathe i feel like i’m gonna die maybe it’s because i’m vaping every 10 to 15 minutes no doctor ever said like maybe you should stop vaping it all came to a head on august 15th when seamas dad rushed her to the er i said go fast don’t let me close my eyes don’t let me fall asleep or i won’t
Wake up now why did you say that because i knew i was dying you felt death on you yeah it was terrifying the worst part was i couldn’t i couldn’t let it like my parents watch it happen to me but hospital staff couldn’t figure out why seema couldn’t breathe two days later doctors had to put her on a ventilator i was begging them found her faster event her faster
She’s going to die it was terrifying it was in that agonizing moment that seamas cousin revealed her secret addiction she said you know she smokes every day what what are you talking about you said she smokes every day she smokes that beep i said you tell the doctors right now you go tell the doctors right now and i ransacked her room and i found all the vapes it
Looked like gum wrappers they look like little candy wrappers they look like little cute a mascara wands this progression is so fast dr. catherine melamed is a pulmonologist at ucla medical center she worked on seema’s case this was seema’s chest x-ray when she came into our hospital these hazy white areas here at the base at the bottom of her lungs just show that
She could have a pneumonia but what you can then see is if we choose an x-ray from just less than 48 hours later now her lungs all of this white haziness here is inflammation from just day 1 to day 3 is remarkable dr. melamed is on the front lines of what health officials fear is an emerging crisis the national youth tobacco survey found a 78 percent jump in east
Cigarette usage among high school students alone but any research on the impacts of vaping lags far behind part of vaping is heating oil and then inhaling that oil and that’s not something the lung is used to inhaling and so with that comes an inflammatory reaction that then produces phlegm and sputum and gives the lungs sort of that wet cough when property that
Sounds terrible and dangerous yes last month 17 year-old tristan zou fell described how he spent 18 days in the hospital fighting for his life after vaping i woke up just throwing up everywhere how it was just pounding on my chest going 100 miles an hour tristan lost 15 pounds and said he had to relearn to walk and just yesterday a texas teen had to be rushed
To the hospital after vaping at school passed out and you and i wake up like he was not waking up in wisconsin today a man was arrested for making thousands of illegal thc vaping cartridges the state of new york is taking an aggressive approach in an attempt to find answers and crack down on black-market products you shouldn’t be vaping products that clearly you
Don’t know what you’re you’re smoking or vaping many vaping products are popular with young adults and teenagers but no company has taken more heat than jul the industry leader the company says it’s designed to get adult smokers off cigarettes but just this week the fda sent a warning letter to jewell accusing it of illegally marketing its nicotine bait products
As safer than traditional cigarettes without proof jewell responded we share these concerns about youth vaping it adds it shut down its facebook and instagram accounts and recently began deploying new technology to verify ids this yeah.but seema’s mom blames the whole industry for trying to hook kids early the fact that they market this crap to children and they
Turned into pink pretty purple packaging candy pisses me off there’s a lot we don’t know about the both short-term and long-term consequences of vaping and so i would just say don’t and the week since seema has worked to rehab her lungs she still feels that pull to pick up the vape now i don’t necessarily crave the nicotine i don’t necessarily crave the weed it’s
Just craving like the act of smoking so that’s been my hardest thing of like staying away from it but she hopes that going public with her story can keep her and countless others like her alive what would you tell somebody who’s under 18 who’s thinking about vaping and says i’m just gonna try it one time to see what it’s like i would show them my pictures and say
I tried it once too and then i tried it another time and then another time it’s just remembering that you don’t need it like it’s gonna kill you for nightline i’m adrienne banker in los angeles hi everyone george stephanopoulos here thanks for checking out the abc news youtube channel if you’d like to get more videos show highlights and watch live event coverage
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Transcribed from video
Teen was in the fight for her life after vaping a cartridge a day I Nightline By ABC News
