2 litres of 'black and bloody' liquid drained from lungs of 32-year-old woman addicted to vaping

The woman said she had been vaping or using e-cigarettes since 2021 and admitted that her addiction was 'excessive'. (Representational image: AFP)

A woman in US was recently hospitalised and had two liters of black and bloody liquid removed from her lungs. Jordan Brielle, 32, is addicted to vaping and spends $500 (about Rs 42,000) per week for it. She has also been diagnosed with a minor brain injury, The Daily Mail reported.

Brielle said that she had been vaping or using e-cigarettes since 2021 and admitted that her addiction was “excessive”. “I was fully addicted,” she told the publication. “I was vaping so much that I slept with it, it went to the shower with me.”

But things started getting bad in 2023 when Brielle began to feel heaviness in her chest and had a "horrible cough". “At first it was just a respiratory infection or bronchitis, so I kept going to the hospital with breathing problems,” she said. “I had a horrible cough and was going to the hospital two or three times a week for help. I had little to no voice. Each time they would send me home. It felt like there were 80 pounds (about 36 kg) of pressure just laying on my chest. I’d never felt so sick in my life.”

Brielle added that her ankles and kneecaps were swelling up. "I kept going to the hospital because I was progressively getting worse,” she told the publication. “My skin was turning gray... I could barely do anything. Nobody knew what was actually wrong with me. I felt like I was dying.”

Things took a turn for the worse when Brielle's partner found her with black mucus seeping from her nose and mouth.  She was rushed to the hospital and put into a medically-induced coma before the doctors drained two liters of “vape juice” -- the liquid the vaporizer converts to aerosol before it’s inhaled --  from Brielle’s heavily damaged lungs.

She has since been discharged but is still at risk of lung failure. But since then, Brielle said she hasn't touched a vape since.