“Below Deck” star Fraser Olender has opened up about a frightening health scare caused by vaping, revealing that he suffered a heart attack and lung injury.
The 33-year-old Bravo star shared the news on Friday via Instagram, posting a carousel of photos showing him in a London hospital. “A few weeks ago I was rushed to hospital due to severe chest pains and difficulties breathing,” Olender wrote.
He explained that he spent a week visiting specialists to determine the cause of his symptoms. “To keep it simple — I had vape poisoning, (an E-cigarette or Vaping-Associated Lung Injury, EVALI) and I have never experienced fear or pain like it,” he shared.
According to the American Lung Association, EVALI is “an acute or subacute respiratory illness and can be fatal.” Olender added that he developed a “coronary artery vasospasm,” where the arteries delivering blood to his heart “suddenly clamped down.” The spasm reduced blood flow enough to trigger an ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), commonly known as a heart attack — not due to a blockage, but because his heart wasn’t receiving enough oxygen.
Olender said he is now recovering and is “grateful” to be out of danger, but wanted to share his experience as a warning to others. “If this experience can help even one person rethink vaping, it’s worth telling,” he wrote. “I haven’t touched a vape since this happened and never will.”
The Instagram post also included a touching moment with his boyfriend, “Las Culturistas” podcast host Matt Rogers, who supported him by his hospital bed. Olender concluded the post with a photo of himself giving a thumbs-up on a flight, signaling his full recovery.
Describing the excruciating pain, Olender revealed, “The pain I endured for 24 hours was inexplicable, 2 rounds of morphine didn’t touch the sides and eventually had to be given the strongest pain relief legal to administer in ER — and that only brought my pain from a 10 to a 7.”
He urged fans to reconsider vaping: “I could have died for the sake of something so ridiculously stupid, so please do yourselves a favour and give it up too — cold turkey. We do not know enough about these horrific things but I can tell you one thing; that was NOT cute, not even for the plot.”
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