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Florida man who survived double-lung transplant reacts to Juul settlement
When Walker McKnight was 19, he was a college cheerleader at Florida Atlantic University. But he didn't make it through his first year before he became so ill, that he could have died.
ORLANDO, Fla. - When Walker McKnight was 19, he was a college cheerleader at Florida Atlantic University. But he didn't make it through his first year before he became so ill, that he could have died.
After being diagnosed with EVALI, a condition caused by vaping, he has now gone through a double-lung and kidney transplant and has been recovering.
"When everything went south and my lungs kind of just gave out, they were intubating, I think we realized, ‘This was probably because he was vaping,’" Mcknight said.
Now, McKnight is hearing the news that Juul is having to pay millions of dollars for its marketing practices.
"If you could just get a glimpse of what some people have to go through just from what this has caused, I don’t think anyone would want to vape," McKnight said.
In a statement, Juul called it a "Significant part of our ongoing commitment to resolve issues from the past."
That lawsuit was brought by a group of 33 states.
Walker and hundreds of others have filed personal lawsuits that still aren't resolved.
Juul didn't respond to FOX 35's request for comment on McKnight's lawsuit on Tuesday, but in 2019, said "We take product safety seriously, which is why we have implemented industry-leading quality controls and appropriately label our products with ingredient disclosures and health warnings."
"Hopefully, this decision of them to at least pay some substantial amount of money, it makes recognition that they are on the books now, people know that what they did was very wrong," said David McKnight, Walker's dad.