Walker McKnight remembers that first time he took a hit off of aJuul e-cigarette. “It was a really intense, good feeling,” he tells PEOPLE. “I could feel my whole body throbbing and tingling.” Three months later, the 19-year-old college cheerleader was fighting a desperate battle to stay alive.
For over five months he drifted in and out of consciousness, connected to a respirator in an Orlando, Fla., hospital. Doctors fought to keep his inflamed lungs from collapsing and his organs from shutting down. “I begged my parents to let me die,” says Walker. “I wouldn’t wish this on anybody.”
“His case is the worst I’ve seen so far,” recalls critical care specialist Dr. Charles Hunley with Orlando’s Regional Medical Center, which has treated sixvaping-related casesin recent months. “Walker was literally dying in front of our eyes.”
Walker admits that he was oblivious to the potentialdangers of vapinglast December when he purchased his first Juul device, along with a package of tiny mango-flavored pods that contained a pack of cigarette’s worth of liquid nicotine, at a gas station near his parent’s home in Orlando.
By early March, Walker couldn’t hold any food down and had fevers and chills. Doctors at the emergency room near the Florida Atlantic University campus told him he had the flu and prescribed antibiotics and steroids. Four days later, his condition worsened.
When Walker left the hospital in July, he had lost 80 lbs., and his left lung and both his kidneys were destroyed. He carries an oxygen tank with him wherever he goes, and will have to endure grueling lung and kidney transplants to survive (The McKnights are raising money for his medical billson GoFundMe). Now at 20 years old, Walker’s life revolves around dialysis sessions, physical therapy, doctors’ appointments and twice-a-day naps. “This is like something I used to think only happened in the movies,” he says.
For more of Walker McKnight’s story, pick up a copy of PEOPLE, on newsstands Wednesday.
source: people.com
