Dad furious as 5-year-old hospitalised after vaping
The father of a five-year-old boy who ended up in hospital weeks after vaping with a classmate at school is demanding tighter restrictions on the nicotine products.
Steven, the boy's father, said that a seven-year-old child from the same school brought their mother’s fruit-flavoured vape to school and asked his son to try it.
“Another child grabbed his mum’s vape at home, brought it into the schoolyard and asked them to come into the bushes and suck on this, it tastes like grapes,” Steven told 7NEWS.
By the end of the school day, the disposable vape was empty and the boy’s parents fear that he had been using it.
Three weeks later, the five-year-old began coughing and vomiting and was rushed to Geelong hospital with suspected pneumonia.
“(He) couldn’t stop coughing to the point that he was no longer breathing,” Steven said.
“I had no choice but to call an ambulance.”
The father from Victoria is now demanding tighter restrictions on vapes, which are often marketed with cartoons, fruit and catchy lines. With the goal to out-law this particular marketing strategy for vapes, Steven is calling for better child protection on these devices.
“I can’t open a Panadol bottle without some force, as you’d well know, but a child can pick up one of these devices that has nicotine in it,” Steven said.
Steven paid almost $3500 to have the vapes analysed in a laboratory, with the preliminary results revealing at least 16 chemicals, including nicotine.
In Australia, nicotine vapes are only allowed to be sold with prescriptions.
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