The facts date back to October 8. Harley Bennett, a 13-year-old Englishman, was walking with his friends in Cirencester, in the county of Gloucestershire in England, when the tragedy occurred. The teenager was in the subway when he saw an electronic cigarette on the ground. The young man thought he could crush the object but by trampling it, it sank into his foot. “I didn’t think about it, I don’t know how to explain it. I just crushed it and it went straight into my foot. It was very painful,” he told the British newspaper Metro. The 10 centimeter cigarette had lodged in the top of his heel bone, which had cracked.
Shortly after the incident, a friend of Harley’s contacted his mother, Samantha Robinson, who rushed to the scene to take him to hospital. According to the daily, the doctors had never been confronted with this type of injury. “All the nurses asked to see the photos I had taken because they were dumbfounded,” said the teenager’s mother. The next day, the boy underwent a two-hour operation as well as a skin graft which unfortunately failed: “Two weeks after the operation, the surgeon said that there was a high chance of infection and that he’s losing his footing. That’s what scared me the most.” The young patient then risked amputation.
Injured by an electronic cigarette, the teenager is much better
After nine weeks of care, during which her mother changed her bandages daily, Harley recovered. According to the details of the tabloid, the teenager is currently on the road to recovery. As for his relatives, they are now campaigning so that this kind of misadventure does not happen again. They also recall the importance of properly disposing of electronic cigarettes after use. “He was wearing shoes that had a very thick sole. The electronic cigarette went through, through a sock, through his flesh, to the bone. It’s quite shocking” lamented the grandmother of the young boy on Facebook.
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