Below Deck’s Frank Olender Suffers Heart Attack Linked to Vaping

Below Deck’s Fraser Olender revealed that he was in the hospital for a lung injury and a heart attack caused by vaping, sharing that he’s “never experienced fear or pain like it” before. 

The Bravo star, 33, posted a series of selfies from his hospital room to Instagram on Friday, Dec. 5, after sharing that for the past few weeks, he’s been recovering from a health crisis.

“I was rushed to hospital due to severe chest pains and difficulties breathing,” Olender wrote in the caption, explaining that after the incident, he spent a week seeing specialists to determine what had happened. As he shared, “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.”

EVALI was first identified as a condition in 2019, the American Heart Association explains. More than half of those affected require treatment in an intensive care unit. EVALI can include a variety of conditions, like bronchiolitis obliterans (aka, popcorn lung), acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and more.

In Olender’s case, his vape caused a coronary artery vasospasm, which he correctly described as “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,” Olender continued.

He shared that he’s “grateful to still be recovering now, and I’m sharing this because I never realised something like this could happen. If this experience can help even one person rethink vaping, it’s worth telling.”

Although some of the photos he shared were lighthearted — like using a red-light therapy mask while recovering, or sharing a shot of his boyfriend, Las Culturistas host Matt Rogers, flashing the peace sign while visiting in the hospital — Olender was quick to emphasize the severity of his health scare  

“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 wrote. “I haven’t touched a vape since this happened and never will.” 

Olender urged others to give up vaping, explaining, “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 👎🏼.”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

He concluded his post with a sweet message to his followers.

“Love you all, be safe, put your health first and thank you for all of your well wishes 🫶🏼.” Olender wrote, before adding a postscript. “It’s been nearly 3 weeks off the vape – my skin has never been better, brighter and clearer, there MUST be a correlation. BEST skincare hack out there 👀.”