18-year-old who had a lung transplant after flu urges people not to ignore symptoms

Kacper Bortel, an 18-year-old karate practitioner, caught type A flu in February. The first symptoms — weakness, problems with concentration, fatigue, then a fever — he underestimated, by his own account. The viral infection was complicated by a bacterial one and destroyed his lungs.

The day after a visit to the paediatrician, Kacper ended up in intensive care at the Upper Silesian Child Health Centre in Katowice and was connected to an ECMO machine that replaced the work of his lungs. Doctors at the Silesian Centre for Heart Diseases in Zabrze diagnosed irreversible lung damage, and in April he received a lung transplant; he waited two weeks for donor organs.

Now Kacper is learning to walk again, and he will have to take medication for life. “Do not ignore any symptoms. See a doctor straight away,” he urges. Medics remind that flu season is only starting, and it is never too late to get vaccinated.