My son, 34, never woke up after ditching smoking for ‘safer option’ of vaping because his girlfriend hated the smell

A MUM claims her son switched to vaping as a "safer option" and because his girlfriend didn't like the smell of cigarettes - only to pass away suddenly months later.

Danny Clark, 34, had been vaping for a little more than a year when he went to sleep and didn't wake up again on December 12, 2024, after suffering from slurred speech and loss of balance the night before.

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Cindi Clark, Danny's mum, says he had smoked cigarettes since he was a teenager and was "a regular pack-a-day smoker".

Danny started vaping more frequently in October 2023 in an attempt to help him quit cigarettes.

The construction worker began reaching for his vape every 10 minutes during the day and would even keep one his nightstand for if he woke up in the night.

Cindi, 62, says her son's death came as a "complete shock" and the family were faced with an agonising three-month wait to find out the cause of his death.

In March, the family received the coroner's report which concluded that Danny had passed away from a sudden cardiac arrest caused by nicotine poisoning.

The frequency of Danny's vaping, combined the high 50mg nicotine content of the vapes both contributed to his death, according to Cindi, an occupational therapist.

She says Danny thought that vaping was the "safer option" and would be "p***ed off" if he knew that it would eventually lead to his death.

The mum-of-eight, from West Chester, Pennsylvania, US, believes more needs to be done to regulate the sale of vapes and their nicotine content and now wants to raise awareness of the potential dangers it can cause.

"I think there needs to be more awareness around nicotine poisoning itself rather than just the lung issues vaping can cause," Cindi said.

"I can't imagine for really young people who vape what they're doing to their bodies later on because they're just putting more and more in and they don't even know."

Nicotine poisoning is rare, but can happen.

In 2010, there were only around one instance of nicotine poisoning a month in the US, according to research by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

But with the introduction of e-cigarettes, those numbers have skyrocketed to over 200 a month, according to the American Association for Poison Control.

The American Lung Association says symptoms of being 'nic-sick' are nausea or vomiting, stomachache, loss of appetite, increased heart rate, headache, mouth watering, heavy breathing, dizziness and confusion.

This can progress to muscle weakness, seizures, respiratory failure, cardiac arrest and breathing difficulties - these require immediate medical attention.

Nicotine poisoning is technically ingesting nicotine.

Cindi said: "Danny was a smoker from a teenager, throughout all of his young adulthood.

"You didn't really see Danny when he wasn't smoking - that was pretty common for him. He was a regular pack-a-day smoker.

"He tried to switch to vaping as a way of stopping smoking because his girlfriend didn't like the smell of it.

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"His death came as a total shock. I received a call from my older son that Danny had passed away. It was a total shock - it was incomprehensible.

"All we knew was that he went to bed and he didn't wake up."

Cindi says Danny's girlfriend reported that he had experienced slurred speech and loss of balance the night before he passed away.

At first the family were left questioning whether he had been drinking more frequently than they were aware of - until it was discovered how much nicotine was in his system.

Cindi said: "That was sitting on my mind that that was very strange but we had a long period of waiting.

"They did the full autopsy and we had Danny's funeral.

"The medical examiner started really drilling into interviewing his girlfriend about all of his tobacco and vape use and asking her over and over again what it was that he was using - what the strength was and how often he was using it.

"I couldn't understand why they were pushing in on it because they'd said his organs looked fine. It just wasn't making sense to me.

"Finally I got that call from the medical examiner that his blood levels of nicotine were so high that it was the cause of death.

"It was only three months but it felt like we waited for forever.

"He said that the amount of nicotine was three times the level and he had suffered from nicotine poisoning.

Danny thought vaping was the healthier option. He would have been so p***ed off [if he knew it would kill him] and I felt the same way. It felt like we were cheated

Cindi Clark

"The impairment that he was showing [before he died], were all signs of the nicotine being so high in the bloodstream that it started impairing his nervous system - he was slurring his speech, and he was having trouble with balance and coordination.

"Ultimately he went to bed and it caused a [cardiac arrest].

"The coroner told me that most people with vaping think of lung issues - problems breathing or popcorn lung - but Danny didn't have any of that.

"Even with smoking [cigarettes], his lungs didn't look terrible.

"His girlfriend said that he would have it on the nightstand next to him when he went to bed so if we woke up [in the night] he would vape.

"Danny thought vaping was the healthier option. He would have been so p***ed off [if he knew it would kill him] and I felt the same way. It felt like we were cheated."

Cindi believes people are not aware of the levels of nicotine content in vapes and is calling for tighter regulation on their sale.

Cindi said: "It's in such a pure form I think it's so much more addictive than even cigarettes are.

"Of course when you put anything in your body that's not natural, you know that you're taking a risk but I don't think the risks [of vaping] are spelled out as quickly as they should be.

"I also don't think that there's any kind of monitoring on all of the devices and the percentage of nicotine that they get in their system.

"There's no regulation on that at all so people are basically just getting addicted to this thing and it's toxic and they can just keep putting more and more and more in their system without any idea of what's happening as a result of it.

"It's a false sense of security - people think they're not coughing, or they don't have pain in their chest but people don't know what's happening in other areas.

"I definitely think more needs to be done to regulate the sale of vapes.

"But something needs to be done about it. It can't keep going on like this."

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