North Dakota man, Jackson Allard, needs double lung transplant after years of vaping

News

By Nicholas McEntyre

A North Dakota man was given a 1% chance of survival after being hospitalized and put on life support while in need of a double lung transplant as his oxygen levels dropped after years of heavy vaping.

Jackson Allard, 22, went to a clinic in October after complaining about stomach aches and was admitted because of low oxygen levels, where he was diagnosed with Influenza 4 and double pneumonia, while his condition worsened, and was subsequently transferred to the University of Minnesota, according to a GoFundMe page.

“A doctor said he had a 1% chance of living and we said, ‘He’s fighting,’” Allard’s grandmother Doreen Hurlburt told Valley News Live.

After being admitted into the hospital, Allard’s condition declined so dramatically that doctors decided to put the Fargo native on life support to rest his body, according to the Wahpeton Daily News.

Hurlburt says her grandson developed his symptoms from his terrible habit of vaping, which at one point got so bad during his three-month hospital stay that his heart stopped beating, leading to doctors giving a poor prognosis.

“He’s fought for how many weeks we’re going to give him a chance to fight, we’re not going to stop any procedures or anything’.”

Hurlburt says she told Allard to quit vaping as experts had earlier deemed it to be worse than traditional smoking methods.

“You have to stop vaping, and we kept telling him that over and over and over again, and he was a heavy vaper. He vaped all the time,” Hurlburt said.

Allard, who was described as “friendly, outgoing, energetic and fun” responded to his family criticism with, “It’s better than cigarettes.”

His grandmother countered his argument with “well they said, with cigarettes in 50 years you’ll have lung cancer, in 5 years, if you vape they will see you with permanent lung damage.”

The US Food and Drug Administration and other health experts agree that electronic cigarettes are far less dangerous than traditional ones, but some are calling for a surgeon general’s report that could help clear the air of the health risks of the modern smoking trend.

“There have been so many confusing messages about vaping,” Lawrence Gostin, a public health law expert at Georgetown University recently said. “A surgeon general’s report could clear that all up.”

While sitting alongside the hospital bed, Hurlburt feared she would lose her grandson.

“I thought for sure 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,” she told KVLY-TV.

While the double lung transplant saved Allard on January 1, his life will forever be changed, in both the short and long-term aspects.

The former vaper and his mother will have to stay in Minnesota for the next six months for his regular checkups.

Allard can also never smoke or drink again and will eventually need another transplant later in life.

In a similar heartbreaking scenario, doctors used breast implants to save a Missouri man who needed a double lung transplant after his organs began to shut down after a decade of heavy vaping.

Davey Bauer was saved last May after going into cardiac arrest, with doctors’ only option being to remove the damaged lungs and place breast implants into his chest cavity to keep his heart from shifting out of place.