Jackson Allard, from North Dakota, was being urged by his family to stop using e-cigarettes.
His grandma, Doreen Hurlburt, said he had taken up the habit since he was around 16 or 17 but had recently increased the amount he vaped.
Her concerns regarding Jackson’s health became a reality last October.
Jackson, who was 22, would visit the emergency room with stomach pains, he would later be admitted into the hospital for low oxygen levels.
He was tested and found positive for Influenza 4 and double pneumonia. Healthline explains this is ‘a lung infection that affects both of your lungs.’
As his condition worsened, medics decided to intubate him.
A friend of the family, Angela Dows, wrote on GoFundMe that Jackson heartbreakingly said before being intubated: “I’m scared and don’t want to be alone.”
Jackson was intubated to give his lungs ‘a chance to heal,’ however, five days later he showed no signs of improvement.
He was then put on ECMO, a form of life support, and transferred to the University of Minnesota.
His grandma told Valley News Live: “At one point a doctor said he had a one percent chance of living.”
After years of vaping, there was only one option to save Jackson’s life.
Jackson would need to undergo a double lung transplant but before this could go ahead, he ended up going into cardiac arrest in December, leading to him being resuscitated.
At this point, Doreen believed: “We were going to lose him. I thought for sure he’s not going to survive this, but in my mind, I kept picturing him coming home.”
Fortunately, by January 1, Jackson was able to undergo a double lung transplant.
The surgery was successful and meant that after a few days, he was taken off life support and able to breathe again on his own.
Jackson’s grandma said he was ‘like a deer in headlights’ after being able to breathe for the first time in so long.
Although Jackson has been able to start the path to a full recovery, his life has completely changed.
The 22-year-old can never drink alcohol or smoke and will eventually need another lung transplant later in life.
Jackson also has some important words of advice for others.
He told his family he wants to make sure ‘other people don’t do what he did, vape, and end up having to go through what he went through.’
In an interview with Fox News, Jackson revealed that before his illness he had been using a weed vape, telling the outlet: “I told my friend who smokes weed, I was like, ‘Be careful with that.’”
Experts are not clear on the link between vaping and lung issues. However, doctors suspect Jackson’s use of vapes may have prevented him from recovering from the initial viral infection.
Harvard Medical School states: “It’s clear that there is a lot about vaping we don’t know,” adding: “Until we know more, think twice about vaping.”
You can donate to Jackson Allard’s GoFundMe here.
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