Millions have watched in horror as blackened lung life-long smoker
At this point, after decades of public health campaigns, no one needs to be told that smoking is bad for them.
Still, when we see the actual effects smoking has on the human body – and on the lungs in particular – it can be startling.
That’s why a video from a hospital in China has gone viral recently. People are downright shocked by what a pair of lungs from a life-long smoker actually look like compared to pink, healthy lungs.
It all started when doctors went to harvest the organs of a man who had signed up to be a donor and died at the age of 52.
When they opened up his body they encountered a pair of blackened lungs that had to be rejected entirely. In fact, the lungs – which are supposed to be pink – are entirely tar-stained and inflamed.
The man who uploaded the footage of the thwarted organ donation – Dr. Chen Jingyu – said the patient was declared brain dead and initial oxygenation tests indicated that the lungs were ok. The procedure took place at Wuxi Peopleâs Hospital in Jiangsu, China, and Dr. Chen’s post included the hashtag “jieyan,” which means quit smoking.
It turns out the patient was a chain smoker who smoked a pack a day for 30 years of his life.
The graphic video has been viewed tens of millions of times on various social media channels over the last few weeks and dubbed “the best anti-smoking ad ever” by many who have seen the gruesome footage.
In the video, the doctors remove the patient’s lungs and hold them up for the video camera, turning them to show just how damaged they had become. In fact, they don’t even look like human lungs.
According to UNILAD, Dr. Chen captioned the footage that he uploaded to AsiaWire:
“Many smokers in this country have lungs which look like this. Our team decided to reject these lungs for transplant. If youâre a heavy smoker, your lungs may not be accepted even if you choose to donate them after death. Look at these lungs â do you still have the courage to smoke?”
Roughly one quarter of Chinese men and women over the age of 15 are smokers.
“We Chinese love smoking. It would be impractical to say that we wouldnât accept the lungs of all smokers, but there are strict standards,” said Dr. Chen.
Dr. Chen said they’re in no position to reject the lung donations of all smokers – there are simply too few organs and too many people in need.
“…minor infections in the lungs and relatively clean chest X-rays are also acceptable. If the above conditions are met, we would consider transplanting the lungs,â he claimed.
While the lungs were scheduled to be donated to another patient in need that day, in this case, that person had to go without. There’s no word on their condition following the thwarted transplant.
If you’re interested in seeing the video – which we should warn you is graphic because it involves surgery – you can scroll down below to view it.
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Source: UNILAD, GIANTTUBE via YouTube