A nurse claims vaping left him "looking death in the face" when he needed an agonising operation to remove a portion of his collapsed lung.
Jonathan Belcher said he started vaping at 17 and developed an addiction so severe he was smoking the equivalent of "20 cigarettes a day."
But last month on April 26, the now-22-year-old woke up breathless and with excruciating pain in his left shoulder like "a balloon about to pop" - making him feel like he was dying.
Terrified Jonathan was driven to hospital where he broke down in tears when doctors told him his left lung had a hole in it and had collapsed.
Trapped air was beginning to crush his lungs and heart as part of the condition known as a pneumothorax so surgeons inserted a tube to remove it.
When his lung failed to heal naturally they removed an upper quarter of it in a life-saving op to close up the hole.
The assistant nurse claims he was "looking death in the face" and was terrified from the moment he woke up with the initial shoulder pain.
He admits he now struggles to sleep and his weakened lung now leaves him feeling winded after simple tasks such as phone calls.
Jonathan, from Covington, Virginia, US, said: "I woke up dying [that morning]. I was terrified, and I just knew something was really wrong but I didn't know what.
"It felt like my shoulder was a balloon about to pop. I was really short of breath and any breath I took made the shoulder hurt worse but I didn't realise why.
"It was only two minutes to the hospital, but that was the longest and scariest two minutes of my life. I was truly looking death in the face.
"The moment they said, 'you can call your mum, your lung has collapsed and it's really severe', I just broke down crying.
"I will never forget when I called my mum, and the way she screamed and cried."
Recounting the horrific experience, he added: "It sounds horrible, but I would really use any vape I could get my hands on, it was just so addictive.
"I smoked the equivalent of about 20 cigarettes a day.
"On my medical records, it's labelled that I had a spontaneous tension in the thorax from vaping.
"I told the surgeon that if he was ready for surgery then I was ready for surgery as well. I was just in so much pain that I wanted something that could fix it.
"The chest tube was the most excruciating pain - it's uncomfortable, you can hardly speak or move your arm."
After waking up in pain Jonathan was driven to hospital by a friend where they x-rayed his chest.
Medical professionals inserted a tube through Jonathan's chest and lung to push out the trapped air, before transferring him to another facility.
There, Jonathan claims surgeons had to remove a portion of his lung because it had 'died' due to the restricted flow of oxygen.
Jonathan was discharged on May 9th and claims the trauma of the incident was worse than the pain, as he now frequently struggles to sleep.
Although his lungs are now able to function on their own, Jonathan claims they will be weaker for the rest of his life.
Now the former vaping 'addict' wants to raise awareness about the potential dangers of using the devices.
Jonathan said: "The pain hasn't been the worst part since coming home, it's actually been the trauma.
"It has affected my sleep, because I woke up to the lung collapsing. Now, I have a really hard time being able to sleep and wake up all through the night with really bad sweats.
"It's gone from being able to do normal things without getting winded to having to sit down after a phone call to catch my breath.
"I've absolutely quit vaping. The whole experience was terrifying, painful and so bad that I will never touch a device that produces smoke ever again.
"I completely understand that it's very hard to quit and the bottom line is it's addictive.
"But after the pain that I went through, the trauma that it created and the problems that it has made in my life since, the best advice I could give for trying to quit is think that this will happen to you.
"Don't look at it as if it happens, look at it as when."
