33-Year-Old Reality TV Star Suffers Heart Attack

Below Deck‘s Fraser Olender is sharing an important message after suffering a vaping-induced lung injury and heart attack.

The Bravo star, 33, took to Instagram on Dec. 5 to reveal that he had been recovering from a terrifying health scare unlike anything he’d ever experienced before while sharing photos from the hospital.

“A few weeks ago I was rushed to [the] hospital due to severe chest pains and difficulties breathing. Following this, I spent a week in London hospitals seeing specialists to identify the cause and possible damage of the incident,” he began. “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.”

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Olender continued, “Whatever was in my vape caused me to have a coronary artery vasospasm. Medically, that means the arteries supplying blood to my heart suddenly clamped down. That spasm reduced blood flow enough to cause an ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), better known as a heart attack – not because of a blockage, but because my heart wasn’t getting enough oxygen during the spasm.”

The Chief Stew said he’s “grateful” to be recovering from his health scare and wanted to share his experience, “because I never realised something like this could happen.” He wrote, “If this experience can help even one person rethink vaping, it’s worth telling.”

Olender vowed, “I haven’t touched a vape since this happened and never will,” explaining that the pain he experienced for 24 hours was “inexplicable” — that “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.”

“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,” he wrote. “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.” He concluded, “Love you all, be safe, put your health first and thank you for all of your well wishes.”