Anthony Mayo’s lungs became solidified by the oils used in vape products (Picture: Keith Mayo)

This horrifying X-ray shows the oil-filled lungs of a 19-year-old boy whose vaping habit left him fighting for his life

Anthony Mayo, 19, fell seriously ill last week in Erie, Pennsylvania and he was unable to breathe on his own because his lungs had became severely congested with solidified vape oil.

Anthony’s father, Keith Mayo, told Metro US that doctors warned him ‘right now, at the age of 19, (Anthony’s) got the lungs of a 60-year-old, two-pack-a-day, smoker.’ The teen’s lungs are likely to be scarred for life, according to his doctor.

Keith said his son had been vaping for approximately two years and had tried flavored oils such as blue raspberry, Swedish fish, cotton candy, cinnamon toast crunch, among others. He also vaped THC on occasion, which is the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.




‘It’s solidified. It’s caking everything inside of his lungs,’ Keith said.

Keith Mayo said the flavored oil used to vape cooled and caked his son’s lungs (Picture: Facebook/Keith Mayo)

Anthony was first taken to the hospital on September 8 after he had developed a noticeable cough. Doctors assumed he had bronchitis and gave him an antibiotic, telling them he should recover in a few days.

Two days later, Anthony was pale and looked sick, so he went back to the emergency room. Doctors feared he may have been developing walking pneumonia, which inflames the lungs and may fill them with fluid, so they prescribed him a stronger antibiotic and steroid.

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Keith said Anthony visited their family doctor two days later because he was looking ‘really bad.’ His doctor bumped up his antibiotic and steroid. He also prescribed a ‘puffer,’ which is a medicine that is inhaled to quickly treat coughing or shortness of breath.

But his condition only worsened. On Sunday, he spent the whole night coughing and returned to the emergency on Monday, where tests said that his oxygen levels were at 36%. Anything below 90% is considered dangerously low, according to the Mayo Clinic.

‘As the doctor says, anytime you put moisture into your lungs its not good…If you put oil and moisture into your lungs, now you’re causing complications,’ Keith said, explaining that a doctor likened it to bacon grease that hardened after it cooled.

Anthony is currently recovering at Millcreek Community Hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania (Picture: Google Maps)

Anthony is now recovering at Millcreek Community Hospital where doctors put him on 100% oxygen to allow him to breathe and help him expel some of the oil.

‘And then they heat (the oxygen mixture) and put a little moisture in it, so it will go in there and liquefy some of that stuff (caked oil) and encourage him to cough it up…the first couple days he has been coughing and it was blood-tinged, now it’s just brown, dark dark green,’ Keith said.

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‘He is going to have some scarring. Whether it’s profound, we don’t know yet. It’s a wait and see type of thing. He’s young, he’s 19, so he can recover from this.’

Keith said his son vaped two to three times a day outside their home, but said he did not realize how detrimental vaping could be to his son’s lungs.

‘His whole spin on it was it was cool and not that bad for you. I was just as guilty. I went along with it. I never got into it, but I didn’t also prevent it either,’ he said, adding that he believes vape companies are targeting young people like his son.

Keith Mayo said he did not realize how dangerous vaping was and said companies that create flavored products are targeting children and young adults (Picture: Keith Mayo/Facebook)

‘The flavors that they’re coming out with…It’s not for your construction worker who can’t afford to light up at a building that they’re working, or the executive who is walking to a meeting smoking a cigarette. No, these flavors are all targeting kids or young adults.’



Anthony’s condition is the first recorded instance of its kind in Pennsylvania, Keith said, however it appears similar to a Texas woman who was just officially diagnosed with acute respiratory distress syndrome, a rapidly progressive disease in which fluid leaks into the lungs making it difficult or impossible to breathe.

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The Mayos’ situation come as both state and federal governments have begun to crack down on flavored e-cigarettes and vape oil.

New York became the first state to ban flavored e-cigarettes on Tuesday. Last week, President Donald Trump revealed plans to enact a similar ban on a federal level, as the CDC announced there are now 530 confirmed cases of lung injury associated with vaping on Thursday.

Vaping shot to popularity after being marketed as a healthier way of getting a nicotine hit than traditional cigarettes.