News

Jul 09, 2023

Urgent parent warning as teen football star, 15, dies months after taking up vaping & developing cough that deteriorated

PARENTS have been urged to talk to their kids about the dangers of vaping after a teen football star died months after starting to smoke. Prior to developing a sudden cough, Solomon Wynn, 15, was a

PARENTS have been urged to talk to their kids about the dangers of vaping after a teen football star died months after starting to smoke.

Prior to developing a sudden cough, Solomon Wynn, 15, was a normal, healthy boy who "loved" football, said his grieving family.

He died less than three weeks after celebrating his 15th birthday.

Charlene Zorn, of Wilmington in North Carolina, told Fox News that her stepson had been taken to a primary care doctor while struggling with a nasty cough.

But the doctor initially diagnosed him as being stricken with bronchitis.

Solomon was sent away with antibiotics, steroids, and inhalers - but his condition took a turn for the worse.

Further in-depth examinations of his lungs revealed that the keen gymgoer had been vaping at high school - a discovery confirmed by Solomon.

She added: "As parents, we had no clue. We had no indication that he had been vaping.

"Neither his father nor myself smoke, so there were no products in our house that he could get. It was something he got through his friends."

Zorn told WECT6: “He was only 15. He just finished his freshman year.

"So he went from a kid that was doing weight training to get ready for the next football season to a kid who couldn’t walk to the bus stop. It progressively got worse.”

A CAT scan showed fluid in three places on his lungs - and surrounding the ailing boy's heart.

On June 16 he collapsed and ended up in the hospital on a ventilator.

Sadly, he died the next day.

The family had been warned that Solomon was so weak that even if they tried dialysis, "it would kill him immediately."

Zorn added: “The doctor at the hospital told us that his kidneys had not responded to anything. His kidneys were in total failure."

She said the family "had to make the decision to take our 15-year-old son off the ventilator - all from vaping - it’s horrific. All from something that’s 100 percent preventable.

“He was a healthy football player... now he’s not going to get a driver’s license. He’s not going to prom. He’s not graduating high school.

"None of the things he loves will he ever do again, because of vaping."

She has vowed to prevent more teens dying from e-cigarettes, and advised parents: "Talk to your kids [about the dangers]."

Zorn said: "The vapes have all sorts of metals in them. They have strong nicotine in them that affects the lungs, it turns them into... they call it popcorn lungs."

Stephen Broderick, a Johns Hopkins lung cancer surgeon, said that vaping coats lungs with potentially harmful chemicals.

He explained that “popcorn lung” is another name for bronchiolitis obliterans, a rare condition that results from damage of the lungs’ small airways and was originally discovered when popcorn factory workers started getting sick.

The culprit was diacetyl, a food additive used to simulate butter flavor in microwave popcorn.

Diacetyl is frequently added to flavored e-liquid to enhance the taste.

The expert said there was no lasting treatment for popcorn lung, the symptoms of which include coughing, wheezing, chest pain, and shortness of breath.

Zorn said: "We have to stop this. We need to make sure [kids aren't] getting their hands on vapes.

"Just the impact it has on your body... it’s killing our children."

The Center For the Advancement of Health (CFAH) reported in March that 9.4 percent of young adults aged between 18 to 24 use e-cigarettes.

CFAH said that 11.3 percent of high school students use vapes, which accounts for about 1.72 million of their population.

"E-cigarette companies target the youth through social media promotions.

"As of February 18, 2020, 68 out of 2,807 hospitalized vapers died from e-cigarette or vaping use-associated lung injury (EVALI).

"The median age of those who died from EVALI was 49.5 years, with ages ranging from 15 to 75 years," it added.