A year after Linda Pérez fell into a coma following breast augmentation surgery, she is living at home with her parents and is under 24-hour nursing care. She can’t walk and can speak only a few words.
Her mother, Mariela Diaz, says her daughter no longer needs a feeding tube, is slowly making progress and has experienced small victories, such as moving her feet.
However, she says doctors don’t know if her daughter will ever fully recover. Pérez suffered brain damage in the hour after her surgery.
Pérez’s problems began shortly after the end of her breast augmentation operation in August at the Coral Gables Cosmetic Center.
A report from her doctor, Jacob Freiman, sent to the Florida Department of Health, explained that the anesthetist, Mario Alberto Diaz, told him Pérez 's heart rate was “very low” and he had to give her atropine and chest compressions to keep her alive.
Just over an hour after the operation finished, Pérez was rushed to the emergency room at Mercy Hospital.
But there's a twist...Freiman is certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery. He has no history of malpractice complaints.
However, the anesthesiologist Mario Alberto Diaz was sentenced to 30 months in prison and two years’ probation in Iowa for providing drugs illegally. The Florida Board of Medicine suspended him for six months and found that for a year he should be supervised in the performance of his work.
sourceKubs Lalchandani, who is representing the medical center, said he could not comment on the case because of privacy laws, but said he has requested Pérez’s medical records from Mercy Hospital to carry out his own investigation into what happened.
In his report, Freiman said Pérez was told by a doctor that her daughter had suffered a similar incident when she gave birth to her son.
“They put a spinal anesthetic, and she needed to be intubated,” Freiman wrote in his report — information he says was kept from him to get him to perform the cosmetic surgery.
Obviously surgery should never be taken lightly. Do you believe procedures such as this one are worth the risks? What causes a young and beautiful person to want to mutilate... I meant augment, their body?