When 29-year-old Stacey Coleman quit smoking last year, her friends and family cheered her on.
The substitute teacher from Devon had struggled with nicotine since she was 15. After more than a decade of cigarettes, she finally turned to vaping—thinking it was the “healthier” choice. Within a year, she was in intensive care, unconscious, and fighting for her life.
“I just wanted to breathe better,” Stacey said from her hospital bed, a ventilator tube resting beside her. “But it turned out I was slowly killing myself in a new way.”
Her mother, Angela Coleman, recounted the moment doctors told her Stacey had suffered acute respiratory failure. “They said if we’d brought her in even two hours later, she would have died,” Angela told ITV News.
The terrifying decline began with small symptoms—migraines, chest tightness, a persistent dry cough. Stacey brushed it off as seasonal allergies. But the real damage was hiding deep in her lungs.
Doctors at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital confirmed that she had developed EVALI—e-cigarette or vaping-associated lung injury—a rare but increasingly reported condition linked to high-volume vape usage.
“She was vaping like it was oxygen,” said her boyfriend, Jordan, who revealed she had gone through “at least one 2,000-puff disposable every couple of days.”
Tests showed her lungs were inflamed, leaking fluid, and unable to efficiently transfer oxygen. By the time she collapsed at work, her blood oxygen levels had dropped to critical.
“They told me her organs were shutting down,” her mother said. “I thought I was going to lose my only child.”
Medical experts say cases like Stacey’s are on the rise—especially among former smokers who believe vaping is a safe alternative. A recent BBC investigation found that vape-related hospital admissions in the UK had jumped 248% in just two years.
“We’re seeing people who never had lung issues suddenly needing long-term care,” said pulmonologist Dr. Rajiv Sharma. “And they all thought they were making a healthy choice.”
One of the most damning discoveries in Stacey’s case was the specific type of vape juice she’d been using—an unregulated, mango-flavored pod purchased online. It contained dangerous levels of vitamin E acetate, a compound previously linked to fatal lung injuries in the U.S.
“This stuff wasn’t just unregulated—it was poison,” Dr. Sharma added.
Photos of Stacey in hospital, shared by her cousin on Facebook, show her frail and nearly unrecognizable, hooked up to machines.
The post quickly went viral, sparking nationwide debates about the illusion of “safe vaping.”
British health campaigner Deborah Arnott, CEO of Action on Smoking and Health, said Stacey’s story is a “devastating wake-up call.”
“She did what public health told her to do,” Arnott said. “And now she’s almost dead.”
Stacey is expected to survive but will require months of pulmonary rehabilitation. She now relies on an oxygen machine at night and struggles to walk without losing her breath.
“I feel like I aged 40 years in three months,” she said. “And all because I believed a lie printed on a box.”
Her family is calling for tighter restrictions on vape marketing and stronger regulations for online sellers. “They’re selling this stuff like candy,” her mother said. “Nobody’s telling the truth about what it’s doing to people.”
As she rebuilds her life, Stacey has one message she wants shouted from rooftops.
“If you’re vaping because you think it’s safe—please stop. I wish I had.”
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