Debi Austin Dies: Woman Who Smoked Through Her Neck In Disturbing 1990s PSAs Is Dead At 62 After 20-Year Cancer Battle [VIDEO]

Debi Austin died Friday at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys, Calif. at the age of 62, after succumbing to a 20-year-battle with cancer.

Austin was best known for a disturbing series of California anti-smoking public service announcements from the 1990s where she smoked through the voicebox in her neck.

"They say nicotine isn't addictive," Austin said one of the unforgettable PSAs, before taking a drag of a cigarette through her voicebox. "How can they say that?"

In a statement following the anti-smoking icon's death, California State Department of Health spokesman Ron Chapman called the Debi Austin PSA "the most-recognized and talked about California tobacco control ad," according to the Los Angeles Times.

"Debi was a pioneer in the fight against tobacco and showed tremendous courage by sharing her story to educate Californians on the dangers of smoking," Chapman said.

Austin became a smoker in junior high after stealing one of her father's Camels. By the time she was in high school, she was up to a pack a day.

In 1992, Austin, managing a small telephone company at the time,

noticed a small lump under her jaw.

A biopsy revealed it was cancer of the larynx, and she was forced to have her vocal cords removed in a laryngectomy. Austin learned to speak through the voicebox in her esophagus.

"I'd never met or heard anyone who'd had a laryngectomy," Debi told The Los Angeles Times in 1997. "I thought, 'Oh my god, I make my living on the telephone and now I'm going to sound like Elmer Fudd on Thorazine for the rest of my life.'"

Debi Austin dies with a collection of iconic anti-smoking ads left in her wake, that are forever ingrained in the minds of the millions who saw them.

She once said that her story was effective deterrent for would-be smokers because it was as bad as it gets.

"I am the worst-case scenario that your mother told you about," Austin said. "I am the walking dead, the castoff of the tobacco industry that they can't fix, they can't heal."

See Debi Austin in one of her iconic PSAs: