An American teenager shattered his jaw and broke several teeth after his electronic cigarette exploded in his mouth.
Austin Adams, 17, from Nevada, had bought the e-cigarette to help him quit smoking last year.
The teenager, who lives in Rural Ely, was rushed to a children’s hospital in Salt Lake City – an agonising five-hour drive away – after the device blew up in his face in March 2018.
His mother had brought him the e-cigarette from a company called VGOD, in a bid to ease her son’s addiction to tobacco.
“Austin came in with his hand up to his mouth,” Kailani Burton, 45, said. “He was in shock and unable to speak.”
She said she was forced to take her son all the way to Salt Lake City Primary, as it was the only facility that could handle his blast injury, as well as the severe burns to his mouth.
Dr Katie Russell, a trauma surgeon who treated Adams, profiled the case in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The 17-year-old underwent “open reduction and internal fixation of the fracture, dental extraction, and debridement of devitalised tissue”, according to Dr Russell.
A malfunctioning vape also claimed the life of one Texas man in January 2019, when an e-cigarette he was using blew-up in his face and left a “penetrating trauma” – later killing him, according to MailOnline.