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The Vaping Crisis
電子煙危機
Walker McKnight was just 19 years old when he bought his first e-cigarette. Two months later he was in a hospital fighting for his life 'Vaping Nearly Killed Me'
沃克·麥克奈特買第一支電子煙時只有19歲。兩個月后，他在醫院里與死神搏斗，“吸電子煙差點要了我的命”
Walker McKnight had never given much thought to vaping.
沃克·麥克奈特從來沒想過吸電子煙。
In high school the health-conscious athlete—who often spent five hours a day working out—would occasionally take a drag off a friend's e-cigarette, but it wasn't until he started his freshman year at Valencia Community College that the 19-year-old student decided to purchase his first Juul.
在高中，注重健康的運動員——通常每天花5個小時鍛煉——偶爾會吸一口朋友的電子煙，但直到他開始在瓦倫西亞社區學院上大一，這個19歲的學生才決定買他的第一支Juul。
"It gave me a really intense, good feeling," says Walker, recalling how a couple of hits helped take the edge off the pressures of school.
沃克回憶起吸煙如何幫助減輕了學校的壓力，他說：“這給了我一種非常強烈而美好的感覺。”
"I could feel my whole body throbbing and tingling." Two months later Walker was fighting a desperate battle to stay alive.
“我能感覺到我全身的悸動和刺痛。”兩個月后，沃克開始了一場絕望的求生之戰。
He spent nearly four months drifting in and out of consciousness, connected to a respirator in an Orlando hospital, as doctors fought to keep his infected lungs from collapsing and his organs from shutting down.
他在奧蘭多一家醫院接受了呼吸機的治療，在將近四個月的時間里，他時而昏迷，時而清醒，醫生們努力防止他受感染的肺衰竭，防止他的器官衰竭。
"I begged my parents to let me die," says Walker, now 20, as he fidgets with the oxygen tube under his nose. "I wouldn't wish this on anybody."
“我求父母讓我死，”現年20歲的沃克一邊擺弄著鼻子下的氧氣管一邊說。“我不希望這樣的事發生在任何人身上。”
Tragically Walker—who estimates that nearly 90 percent of his friends still vape on a regular basis—is just one of thousands of young people across the nation who have been hospitalized with serious lung illnesses associated with vaping.
可悲的是，沃克估計，他的朋友中有近90%仍然定期吸電子煙。全國各地有成千上萬的年輕人因吸電子煙而住院，沃克只是其中之一。
"His case is the worst I've seen so far," says Dr. Charles Hunley, critical care specialist at Orlando's Regional Medical Center, where six potentially vaping-related cases have been treated in recent months.
“他的情況是我見過的最嚴重的，”奧蘭多地區醫療中心的重癥監護專家查爾斯·亨利博士說，近幾個月來，該中心已經治療了6例可能與電子煙有關的病例。
"Walker was literally dying in front of our eyes."
“沃克就在我們眼前差點死去。”
While e-cigarettes are not new, CDC officials say the past several months have brought an "alarming epidemic" in vaping-related illnesses as well as 47 deaths in the U.S. linked to vaping.
盡管電子煙并不是什么新鮮事，但疾病控制與預防中心的官員表示，在過去幾個月里，電子煙造成與電子煙有關的疾病“十分流行，令人擔憂”，并導致美國47人死亡。
As health officials scramble to identify the cause of the outbreak, Juul, the nation's largest e-cigarette manufacturer, faces lawsuits from several states for allegedly targeting teens and young people in its marketing campaigns.
就在衛生官員忙于查明疫情爆發的原因之際，美國最大的電子煙制造商Juul面臨著來自幾個州的訴訟，原因是據稱該公司針對青少年開展營銷活動。
"Lung injury associated with e-cigarette or vaping product use is serious and potentially fatal," says Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the CDC.
美國疾病控制與預防中心的首席副主任安妮·舒克特博士說：“電子煙或電子煙產品引起的肺部損傷很嚴重，有可能致命。”
"There is no safe tobacco product."
“沒有安全的煙草產品。”
Walker admits that he was oblivious to the dangers of vaping last December when he purchased his first Juul device and a package of four tiny mango-flavored pods—each one containing the same amount of nicotine found in a full pack of cigarettes—at a gas station near his parents' home in Orlando.
沃克承認，去年12月他購買了自己的第一臺Juul電子煙，當時他并沒有意識到電子煙的危害，在奧蘭多他父母家附近的一家加油站，他還買了一包芒果味的小雪茄，每包都含有一包香煙所含的尼古丁量。
"I thought it was cool," says Walker, who transferred to Florida Atlantic University a month later.
一個月后，沃克轉學到佛羅里達大西洋大學。
Within weeks—given the pressures of adjusting to a new campus and class schedule—he was vaping a pod or more a day.
幾周之內——考慮到適應新校園和課程安排的壓力——他每天要抽一包甚至好幾包。
"After about a week and a half I stopped getting buzzed from it," he says, "but I'd get nervous and twitchy if I didn't have it."
他說：“大約一周半后，我吸煙不會興奮了，但如果沒有它，我會變得緊張不安。”
