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WARNING – DISTRESSING CONTENT: Jayden Richardson says he took up e-cigarettes aged 12 and would smoke the equivalent of around 50 a day – but then he fell seriously ill
Teen suffers severe lung damage caused by excessive vaping
A ‘traumatised’ teen was told he was coughing up ‘pints’ of blood due to a stomach ulcer after too many kebabs – only to discover it was lung damage from ‘excessive vaping’.
Jayden Richardson says he took up e-cigarettes aged 12 to ‘fit in’ and would smoke the equivalent of around 50 cigarettes a day. However the 17-year-old was ‘terrified’ when he began coughing up blood on the last day of his family holiday in Turkey in August 2024.
After flying home the next day, he was rushed to hospital where his mum Elita Richardson says doctors assumed he had a stomach ulcer. Mum Elita admits she thought it could be linked to the drinks, greasy food and having a kebab ‘every night’ he’d had on holiday.
However, the family were ‘shocked’ when an endoscopy revealed the teenager had ‘severe’ lung damage that doctors say was caused by his vaping addiction. Despite being determined to give up e-cigarettes, he ‘stupidly’ used a vape months later while celebrating his birthday on January 10 and began coughing up blood again.
This was just days before Hollyoaks star Paul Danan tragically passed away – months after being hospitalised for ‘excessive vaping’. Taking to Facebook, Elita, 43, shared a post warning others to ‘please consider vaping because you never think it’s going to happen to you’.
Jayden is now awaiting a CT scan and welcomes the ban of disposable vapes in June 2025 vowing to ‘never’ use one again. Jayden, who lives in Shifnal, Shropshire, said: “I was terrified. I never thought vaping could cause all this.
“It started off in Turkey. The night before I had a bit of chest pain but didn’t really think much of it whatsoever. I woke up the next morning, had a quick go on my vape and just as if I had a bit of a chesty cough.
“I went to cough a few times and it felt a bit phlegmy so I went to spit it out. I saw that it was blood and this put me in shock. I didn’t know what to do myself.
“I got hold of my mum and she said ‘if it gets any worse I’ll come straight to you’ because she was out at breakfast. About five minutes goes by and I’m still coughing up little bits at the start. She comes over and the first time I was coughing it wasn’t really bad at all.
“But a couple hours later I had a few drinks and stuff and I got into the swimming pool and as soon as I got into the swimming pool I’m just coughing up loads of blood into my hands. So I was pulled up out of the swimming pool by my mum’s friend.
“Gone straight to the toilet and I’m coughing up pint-loads of blood. It scared me to see, especially at a young age. It was traumatic. That was probably going on for a good 10 minutes of me coughing up pretty heavy blood.”
Jayden managed to fly home the next day but his dad rushed him to hospital after he started coughing up more blood at Birmingham Airport. His mum claims that doctors initially ‘fobbed him off’ as having a stomach ulcer after she told them he was ‘throwing up’ blood and nothing showed up on a lung X-ray.
However, a week later an endoscopy revealed he had severe lung damage. Elita said: “When I eventually got back he’d been in and out of hospital fobbing him off for a stomach ulcer.
“Because I was perceiving it as he was sicking it up but he was coughing it up. He was heaving. I was thinking ‘I let him have a couple of drinks on holiday, he’s been eating greasy food, he was having a kebab every night’.
“They sent him for lung x-rays. Nothing was showing up on the x-rays. They were then saying ‘is it severe nose bleeds’? Because the blood was coming out of his nose as well. He’d never had a nose bleed.
“I think they were going through the options of everything not thinking that a kid of his age would have severe lung damage. A week later that’s when he had the camera down. The consultant said he’s never seen so much lung damage on a kid. It’s awful. ‘Excessive vaping’, that’s what they said. It was a shock.
“It’s awful. I’m grateful we realised when we did. I was fearful if it had gone on any longer it could’ve been worse. What makes it worse is when it happened again, the bloke from Hollyoaks passed away [and his health issues have been linked to] excessive vaping.”
Jayden was given medication and decided to stop vaping so the bleeding stopped days later. However, the teen admitted he used an e-cigarette months later during his birthday weekend because he thought ‘the damage was done’ but ended up coughing up blood again and is now awaiting a CT scan.
Jayden said: “I ended up having another go on a vape. Stupidly I don’t really know what got into me. I wasn’t heavily using it but I was using it pretty frequently. I was just sitting in bed and literally had a cough. From the tone of cough it was, I could tell straight away it was going to be my blood. I went to spit out. It wasn’t too much blood but it still wasn’t nice to see. It was pretty stressful.
“I thought the damage was done and it would just heal itself and I thought that a few tokes on a vape wouldn’t affect me. But i was totally wrong and i cant believe how easily it was to get the damage done again.
“I’m feeling a lot of pain in the left side which I imagine could be my left lung. I get frequent pain. I could be sitting here just doing nothing and it could be a sharp stabbing pain. It hurts when I cough. It’s terrible.”
He admitted he would get through one 10ml bottle of vape juice every two to three days which is the equivalent to around 50 cigarettes daily.
Jayden said: “Everyone was doing it around me. I felt like it was kind of to fit in but it just felt normal to do it. I was vaping everyday. I wouldn’t really put it down to be honest. It’s just a bad habit really. Once you start, obviously it’s highly addictive, it’s hard to stop.
“When the disposables were more popular, you don’t know what’s actually in them. You find fake ones. None of it’s good but they especially are really bad for you. All sorts of chemicals.
“You don’t know what they’re really putting in. They’re dangerous and no one should touch them. They should be banned in every country.
“If I could go back to that moment when I first started I’d tell myself ‘never to touch one of them’. It’s crazy how dangerous they are and what they can actually do to the human body. You don’t realise it when you do it. It just affects you in the long run. I would never touch one.”