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\"It won\u2019t happen to me.\"
\nLength : 2 Min 53 Sec
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![\"Myth](\"http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/multimedia/shareable/seven_deadly_myths/images/myth1.jpg\")
Transcript
\n(Video of a burning cigarette in an ashtray sounds of a female coughing in the background. Title reads, Myth #1 \"It won\u2019t happen to me.\")
\nFemale Voice: It won\u2019t happen to me.
\nFemale 1: Lung cancer is a possibility, you know, I do think about that. I have watched things on emphysema and, you know it\u2019s very scary.
\nFemale 2: I guess that\u2019s just not the way I\u2019ve visualized myself dying. Maybe that sounds weird, but I\u2019ve always figured I\u2019ll, you know, live till I\u2019m old and get hit by a truck when I\u2019m 70.
\nChristy Turlington: My father died of lung cancer. He was 64. It was a senseless death because it could have been prevented. Not every one who smokes will die from it, but as many as half of all long-term smokers will. Everyone thinks, \"She won\u2019t be the one.\" But why take chances?
\nFemale 3: I really don\u2019t think smoking is bad. Uhm, it pretty much depends on how often you do it.
\nDr. Bill Lloyd: Lung cancer emphysema, heart disease\u2026 anybody that thinks that they\u2019re going to be able to smoke and won\u2019t develop some of these complications or diseases is delusional.
\nFemale 3: I feel as though that I\u2019m young and there\u2019s no way possible I can get lung cancer, I\u2019m only 24.
\nChristy Turlington: Meet Pam Laffin, who started smoking when she was just a kid.
\nPam Laffin: I started smoking because I wanted to look older and I got hooked. Cigarettes gave me asthma and bronchitis, but I couldn\u2019t quit. I didn\u2019t quit until I got emphysema and had a lung removed. I was 24. I\u2019m 26 now. The medication, which I\u2019ll take for the rest of my life, left me with this fat face and a hump on my neck. I start smoking to look older and I\u2019m sorry to say it worked. The things I didn\u2019t understand about smoking related illness, first of all, the doctor doesn\u2019t say you have cancer, or you have emphysema and then you die. It takes a while and it\u2019s, uhm, not a pleasant way to live. The transplanted lung went into rejection, which means my body started to reject it and now my 13 year old daughter, uhm, kind of feels like she\u2019s the head of the household. A lot of the responsibility of the household falls on her. And so I feel really bad, I feel really guilty that I took away their childhood. I feel really guilty that they have to worry about me. If I have to go to the hospital in an ambulance, and my kids watch me go away in an ambulance, they really don\u2019t know if I\u2019m ever coming home. So, they don\u2019t know if they\u2019re ever going to see me again.
\nChristy Turlington: When Pam understood how sick she was, she dedicated herself to educating women like you. She died just before we completed this video. She was only 31 years old. It\u2019s heart breaking but true. If you smoke, it can kill you. Every cigarette hurts you. We\u2019re not here to bring you down; we\u2019re here to bring you the truth women to women.
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