A Maryland woman almost died on Christmas Day, apparently because of her vaping habit.
Claire Chung, 19, of Germantown had a fever of 104 degrees that lasted for weeks, and she kept vomiting.
“I was legitimately scared that if I went back to sleep that I wouldn’t wake up because my fever was just climbing,” she said.
Doctors did a CT scan of her lungs and told her they’d never seen damage like it.
She immediately thought of her parents.
Chung started vaping a few years ago. She said all of her friends were doing it.
Her parents told her vapes were dangerous, but she ignored them.
Health
“My parents would take — every time they found something — they would take it, and I would go out and buy a new one right away,” she said.
Chung spent five days in intensive care. Doctors gave her steroid medication.
“It was my fault,” she said. “I put myself in this position, and now they’re wondering if their daughter’s gonna die on Christmas morning because of me.”
She’s doing better, but it’s still too early to tell if her lungs will have permanent scars.
“The fact that I was sitting in the hospital in my deathbed almost, it was very eye-opening,” she said.