A 12-year-old was put in an induced coma after vaping caused damage to her lungs.

Mary Griffin from Belfast, Ireland, shared that her daughter Sarah had a cough and didn’t feel well before bed on a recent Sunday night, but the family wasn’t initially alarmed, as they thought the symptoms were caused by Sarah’s asthma.

“Her cough was no different from any other time, and she used her inhaler and nebulizer throughout Sunday night into Monday morning,” Mary explained to Belfast Live.

At that point, Mary left the house to take her other children to school when Sarah called.

“Sarah rang and said, ‘Come back, mummy, I don’t feel well. I’m afraid,’” the mother said, recounting how she rushed home to get her daughter situated with her inhaler and nebulizer again, which seemed to settle her.

“A while later I popped out to the shop quickly and Sarah rang again, this time completely out of breath, barely able to string a sentence together, saying, ‘I need a doctor or to go to hospital,’” Mary recalled.

Sarah’s dad immediately took her to the Royal Victoria Hospital, where a nurse reported that Sarah’s oxygen levels were concerningly low.

“Sarah was just in a blind panic, she was terrified,” Mary said.

“She was on oxygen and was linked up to all sorts of machines. There were medical staff all around her assessing her, and they said she needed to go to ICU as she was deteriorating very quickly.”

When the doctor took an X-ray of Sarah’s lungs, they realized how badly one of them had been injured, explaining that the other one was therefore working overtime to compensate, causing her asthma to flare up.

To make matters worse, Sarah had also developed an infection, which added to the stress put on her little body.

“When we got to ICU, the team worked on Sarah for 4½ hours before having to put her into an induced coma. There were tubes, wires and machines everywhere — it was heartbreaking to see her like that,” Mary said.

“As her mum, I just felt so helpless — it was a nightmare come true.”

Mary tried to explain the situation to her other children and calm them down but said that “trying to explain to them what was happening was awful.

“They were asking if she was going to die, and I was saying, ‘Of course not,’ but in my mind I was terrified that was a real possibility,” the worried mother shared.

“I had to try and keep it together for them, but I was out of my mind with worry. I never thought something like this would happen to us — you never do.”

The 12-year-old was “very unstable” and connected to a room of machines breathing for her and keeping her alive as her body struggled to keep up.

“It was really hard for the doctors and nurses to find a balance for Sarah — if they got her oxygen levels sorted, her blood pressure would go down, or if they got something else sorted, another one of her vitals would go in the wrong direction. It felt like one step forward, two steps backwards — and that went on for a few days,” Mary said.

“At first, we really didn’t think Sarah would make it,” she admitted.

The first time the doctors tried to bring Sarah out of the coma, the process failed and she had to be induced again.

“I had to help and hold Sarah’s hands to try and settle her so the doctors could do what they needed to do,” Mary shared.

“I was frightened, and it was horrible to have to see Sarah so scared.”

The team tried to bring her out of the coma again the next day. As the doctors steadily revived her, the Griffin family finally began to regain hope that Sarah would be okay.

The young girl came home several days later and has slowly been recovering, although the ordeal has left her with long-term impacts on her health.

“For the rest of her life Sarah will be classed as a high-risk patient if she is admitted to hospital because of the effect this has had on her physically,” Mary said, adding that her care has been transferred to the Difficult to Control Asthma Clinic at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children.

“Sarah has been left very lethargic,” Sarah’s mom added. “She is usually full of energy, constantly talking and on the go, but she is still recovering and isn’t back to her usual self yet … She still has a long road ahead of her.”

The mother-of-four explained that the doctors warned her that if Sarah had not vaped “she would have been in a better position to fight off the infection,” as vaping had left her lungs very weak.

“The doctors said if Sarah had got to hospital any later, the outcome would have been entirely different. That is something I can’t even think about,” Mary shared.

Experts are increasingly sounding the alarm, warning against the known and unknown effects of vaping, including shrinking testicles, collapsed lungs, “vaper’s tongue” and an array of other disorders.

“People could go on to develop serious health conditions as a result of their vaping, which can also exacerbate existing conditions like asthma,” Fidelma Carter, head of public health at Northern Ireland Chest Heart and Stroke, told Belfast Live.

“Our stance on vaping is that we recommend avoiding the use of vapes other than in a short-term attempt to quit smoking and would urge people: if you don’t smoke, don’t vape.”