‘I’ve been to hell and back’: Teen who burned a hole in her lung after vaping around 400 cigarettes a week issues stark warning

A teenager who burst a hole in her lung after vaping the equivalent of 400 cigarettes a week is warning other young people ‘it’s not worth it’.

Kyla Blight, 17, who started vaping at the age of 15, believed the habit was “harmless” and could vape as many as 4,000 puffs a week – a device that lasts three weeks and contains the nicotine equivalent of 400 cigarettes.

The teenager from Egremont, Cumbria, was rushed to hospital by her father Mark Blight, 61, in the early hours of May 11 after he received a call saying she had collapsed and turned ‘blue’ while at a friend’s house was staying.

Kyla underwent a five-hour operation to remove part of her lung after her heart almost stopped beating.

Doctors discovered that a small air sac, known as an alveoli, had developed on the top of Kyla’s lungs. It is thought that her excessive vaping caused it to burst, leading to her lungs collapsing.

After her surgery, Kyla had to spend another two weeks in the hospital before she could go home.

She now says the ordeal put her off disposable vapes for the rest of her life.

Just three weeks after a life-saving operation, she is calling on other young people to throw away the fumes.

‘I don’t think they should do this to themselves, it’s really not worth it. It’s fun and people think it’s cool, but it’s not worth it at all,” Kyla said on Good Morning Britain.

The teenager revealed on GMB that although she was under 18 and couldn’t legally buy vapes in a shop, she would buy them from other people.

She admitted to vaping “everywhere” and said she reaches for her vape first thing every morning.

Mr Blight said the first sign that something was wrong with his daughter’s health was in November 2023, when Kyla was rushed to hospital after he thought she was having a heart attack.

However, an X-ray showed she had a hole in her lung after a blister formed.

The student was taken to hospital again in February, but on this occasion she was told it had healed.

But in May she was hospitalized again after the bladder burst and caused her lung to collapse.

Mr Blight revealed that despite once catching his daughter using an e-cigarette, he had not realized she had started vaping at the age of 15, not to the extent she was doing it.

Mr Blight, a full-time carer, took to Facebook last week to raise awareness of his daughter’s life-threatening experience and urge young people to throw away their vapes.

The father-of-nine said: “I have been to hell and back with Kyla in recent weeks. I just attributed it to vaping, they can’t attribute anything other than vaping that caused this.

‘She was at a friend’s house and I got a call at 4am saying she had collapsed and turned blue. I passed in front of her. We took her to the hospital.

‘Her lung collapsed this time because of the hole. They put a drain in her. She’s a little girl who doesn’t like needles. She screamed. She was close to cardiac arrest.

‘They rushed us to Newcastle and she had surgery on Tuesday. It was a five and a half hour operation. She had had a seizure on the operating table.

‘I spoke to the surgeon and he talked about these blisters that can form on the lungs. They think it’s the disposable fumes that burst these blisters and poke a hole in your lungs.

‘Apparently it’s a big thing now. He’s done many operations like this.

‘It was terrifying for me. I cried like a baby. It was terrible to see. I’ve been with her the whole time.

‘It was really a threat to her life because she was so close to cardiac arrest that Friday. They said she turned blue. They thought she was gone.”

Mr Blight admitted he vaped for almost 13 years because it helped him quit smoking. The previous heavy smoker has now also quit vaping after his daughter’s health problems.

Dr. Hillary warned non-smokers not to start vaping. He told GMB: ‘For Mark, being a previous smoker, he was better at vaping.

‘For Kyla, this is the last thing she needs: children who don’t smoke shouldn’t be allowed to vape.

‘They contain toxins, many of which have been identified, some of which are quite nasty.

‘Nicotine is addictive. No, they don’t give you carbon monoxide and they don’t give you tar, but they give you a lot of other things.

‘With 4,000 puffs per week, a lot of fluid ends up in the lungs and we just don’t know yet what the long-term risks are.’

Kyla said her recent experience has left her ‘terrified’ and opened her eyes to the dangers of using e-cigarettes, which she now ‘doesn’t want to touch’.

‘When I was fifteen it started to become popular. All my friends did it. “I just thought it would be harmless and I would be okay,” she said.

‘I used the 4,000 puffs every day and I worked them off in about a week.

‘I honestly thought they were harmless and wouldn’t hurt anyone, even though I’d seen so much about them. I just feel like everyone has the same opinion.

‘But now I don’t touch them anymore. I wouldn’t go near them. The situation really scared me.

‘I was terrified. We went there thinking we would only be there for a few hours, but we ended up staying there for two weeks, with surgeries and everything.”

E-cigarettes allow people to inhale nicotine in a vapor, which is produced by heating a liquid, which typically contains propylene glycol, glycerin, flavorings and other chemicals.

Unlike traditional cigarettes, they do not contain tobacco or produce tar or carbon – two of the most dangerous elements.

Although widely seen as safer than smoking, the long-term effects of vaping still remain a mystery.

Doctors have expressed fears that a wave of lung disease, dental problems and even cancer could occur in the coming decades in people who started the habit at a young age.

Last year, leading pediatricians also warned that children were being admitted to hospital with vaping-induced breathing difficulties amid a ‘worrying’ vaping epidemic among young people.