Plastic surgery nightmare: Florida mom left brain damaged, unable to walk after going under the knife
It’s hard to believe that the image above and the one below are of the same person.
Last August, Linda Perez went in for breast augmentation surgery in Miami, Fla.
She was 18 at the time and a mom to a little boy.
Today she is barely recognizable and a shell of her former self after awaking from a coma three months ago.
“She goes into depression and crying,” her mother, Mariela Diaz, told the Miami Herald of her daughter.
Perez has been left brain damaged, barely able to speak and requiring 24-hour nursing care.
“She sees that she cannot walk, and when she realizes what happened to her she cries,” said added.
Perez’s life was turned upside down when she went in for surgery at the Coral Gables Cosmetic Center at an alleged discount cost of $2,100.
An hour after her surgery, she suffered complications and fell into a coma from which she didn’t wake until October.
“While my client is no longer in a vegetative state, she still is not doing well physically,” the family’s attorney, Mark Eiglarsh, told the Daily News by email on Monday.
“She requires 24 hour care, [is] unable to eat, bathe, and/or go to the bathroom on her own. Additionally, she doesn’t speak or walk and has no ability to care for her young child. Her mother compares her condition to that of a helpless infant,” he wrote.
But the clinic claims they are not to blame and Perez had some past medical problems she wasn’t forthcoming about.
“We have conducted our own investigation and I have requested medical records from Ms. Perez’s family, including her toxicology reports, and I have been stonewalled,” Kubs Lalchandani told the Daily News of his claimed inability to get information.
Dr. Constantino Mendieta, leading board certified plastic surgeon, says mistakes and tragedies like this can be avoided.
“This is a tragedy for the patient, her family and all concerned. We do not know all the facts yet but if the reports are true that the patient had a medical history of seizures that were not reported to her surgeon, one wonders if the situation could have been prevented. In any case, we should use the opportunity to remind patients considering surgery that they must be completely and absolutely honest with their doctor about any medical issues. There’s no reason not to be 100 percent transparent. The information is held in the strictest confidence and quite literally, could be lifesaving – but only if the doctor knows about it before the surgical procedure.”
