Mother dies after cosmetic procedure goes horribly wrong
A mother has died in the Dominican Republic after having cosmetic surgery — making her the country’s second surgical victim in one month.
Alicia Renette Williams, 45, a 9th-grade teacher at Huffman High School in Birmingham, Alabama, developed blood clots five days after her June 2 elective surgery in the Caribbean country, WBRC reports.
According to Myra Bennett Powell, a doctor at the Ederra Bella Plastic Surgery and Medical Spa in the US, Ms Williams, who is anemic, travelled to the Caribbean country to have liposuction, a tummy tuck and a Brazilian butt lift.
Afterward she felt so weak she was hospitalised, sedated and given IV fluids and blood, but she later died.
Ms Williams’s doctor claimed hers was his only death, according to Dr Powell, and he reportedly offered to pay for her body to be flown back to the United States. The mum’s body returned to Alabama on Monday.
Dr Powell says people usually opt for surgery in other countries due to the “lack of regulations” and the ability to get more “extreme results” in one procedure.
The doctor noted that Ms Williams was scheduled for “a lot of surgery to happen all at one time”.
She speculated that Williams lost a large volume of blood due to anemia.
Dr Powell said in a Facebook Live video following the death she felt like a failure.
“As much as I talk about how to be safe, [Ms Williams] still went there and did something that wasn’t safe and now she’s gone,” she said.
In 2017, the Centres for Disease Control (CDC) warned US travellers from having cosmetic or plastic procedures in the Dominican Republic due to the prevalence of bacterial infections.
Last week, a New York man Manuel Jose Nunez died after having liposuction at the Caribbean Plastic Surgery Clinic in Santo Domingo, according to Fox 8.
The clinic reportedly said he died of respiratory distress.
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