Seventeen-year-old Brianne Cullen was rushed to the ER after calling her mom in a panic, struggling to breathe. “She kept saying ‘I can’t breathe,’ it was the scariest thing,” her mother Christie Martin recalled. Brianne, who had secretly started vaping at 14, was diagnosed with bronchiolitis obliterans — also known as “popcorn lung,” a rare and incurable condition caused by lung scarring.

The incident occurred after Brianne attended cheer practice while sick. Christie said, “Cheer saved her life because the exertion… on top of being sick, she couldn’t breathe.” Doctors gave Brianne an inhaler and told Christie: “We need to have a very serious conversation… it was popcorn lung that’s permanent and children are dying from it.”

Christie described being devastated: “I thought I failed as a mother.” Although doctors caught the illness early, the long-term effects remain uncertain. “Smoking takes years… but popcorn lung is irreversible,” she said.

Now, she’s calling for action: “We need to work together to take these things off the market… I hope to God they ban them, it’s worse than smoking.”