20-year-old fighter loses part of his lung due to vape use

Sean Tobin is an amateur MMA fighter (Photo: Facebook/Sean Tobin)

Amateur MMA fighter, Sean Tobin had to have part of his lung removed at just 20 years old due to excessive vape use.

A resident of New Hampshire, in the United States, the young man reported that he had been using electronic cigarettes since 2018, when he was still a 15-year-old teenager. In an interview with the newspaper 'Kenedy News and Media', Tobin said that the damage caused by consumption began to be felt by him in July this year.

PUBLICITY:

See too

Rafael Dos Anjos Vicente Luque UFC Las Vegas 78

Rafael dos Anjos loses position in the lightweight rankings after defeat to Vicente Luque at UFC Las Vegas 78

Sean O'Malley is UFC champion. Photo: Reproduction/Instagram @sugasean

Sean O'Malley ignores underdog status for UFC 292 and praises Aljamain Sterling's level

“It was really scary, because I felt like I finished myself. There were years of not treating my lungs the way they should be treated. My cardio was really good, I was really healthy, and I shouldn't have started smoking,” admitted Tobin.

On July 20, while working as an electrician's apprentice, Sean Tobin felt severe back pain and was taken to the emergency room, where he was diagnosed with a collapsed right lung.

PUBLICITY:

Sean Tobin was immediately hospitalized and doctors inserted a tube between his ribs to expel the trapped air that was compressing the fighter's lungs and chest. After two days of no improvement, the young man was taken to surgery, where a camera showed the chest cavity full of black dots.

Sean Tobin had to have part of his lung removed due to vape use (Photo: Reproduction/Kennedy News & Media)

PUBLICITY:

Doctors removed a small part of the top of Sean Tobin's right lung and then stapled it back together. They then glued the organ to the chest wall to prevent further collapse.

After a week in hospital, Sean Tobin was discharged from the hospital, but, a month later, he still finds important limitations to his routine.

“I can’t lift anything that weighs more than 20kg. I'm an MMA fighter and I was very afraid that I wouldn't be able to train anymore. I'm passionate about this and I want to make a living from it one day. (…) My job is also very physically demanding, so I can't work. I can only stand still and that sucks”, said the young man.

PUBLICITY:

Finally, Sean Tobin hopes to serve as an example for other young people who, like him, believe that such things only happen to others.

“I was training and running, and I had better cardio than everyone else in the gym. I remember seeing videos on Tiktok of a guy with a collapsed lung from vaping, and I thought 'That's not going to happen to me. This guy is a bum, I'm not.' You never think something is going to happen to you until it happens to you.”