Button noses, washboard stomachs, voluptuous lips, and perfect, perky breasts. That's what people expect to get when they go under the knife. Unfortunately, it isn't always the case. As anyone who's seen "Nip/Tuck" knows, there's a dark side to plastic surgery, most often involving ruthless doctors, illegal back-alley procedures, and charlatans posing as doctors. Like a bad car accident, we just can't look away. Be forewarned-these horrific headline-making tales of surgeries gone terribly wrong may give you nightmares.
Maria Cruz
Financial analyst Maria Cruz probably thought that her monthly appointments to treat a chronic mouth infection were purely harmless. Unfortunately, she had put her health-and ultimately her life-in the hands of Dean Faiello, who unbeknownst to Cruz did not have a medical license and in fact had been arrested in the past for forging prescriptions and performing medical procedures (including tattoo removal) without a license. Working out of a friend's apartment, and asking Cruz to pay in cash when she came in to have hair removal, Faiello "became this multiple personality, laser-wielding mad scientist," his former boyfriend Greg Bach told CBS's "48 Hours." Soon enough, things took a terrible turn.
After illegally giving Cruz a shot of lidocaine, she fell unconscious. Panicked, Faiello called a real doctor for medical advice and was urged to go to the emergency room. Instead, Faiello let Cruz die, then smuggled her body out, eventually covering with cement at his home-where it was discovered about ten months after her disappearance. After being on the lam, Faiello eventually struck a deal with authorities and is now serving a 20-year prison sentence.
Fabiola DePaula
In 2006 24-year-old Fabiola DePaula turned up dead after a botched $3,000 liposuction performed in a condo basement in Framingham, MA; blood proteins were present on the floor and surgical tools were found in a dumpster. It turns out Luiz Carlos Ribeiro and his wife Ana Maria Miranda Ribeiro-in the U.S. on a 30-day work visa-had been operating "an illegal cosmetic surgery clinic from a condominium, sedating patients with prescription drugs in order to perform stomach-reducing liposuction, to plump women's lips, and to sculpt their noses," The Boston Globe reported.
Surgeries were performed on a massage table covered with sheets after patients-mostly Brazilian immigrants-handed over their cash; former patients say that the blood-soaked sheets were simply thrown into the washing machine after each procedure, and one claimed that her lip injection turned her lips black.
Martha Mata Vasquez
Martha Mata Vasquez, a California beautician operating an illegal cosmetic surgery clinic, was sentenced to 15 years in prison following the death of patient Maria Olivia Castillo. Turns out Vasquez had injected Aguirre-Castillo with Mazola Corn Oil instead of Botox, the Monterey County Weekly Newspaper reports, saying that "the injections left multiple cyst-like lumps of thick gelatinous goop embedded deep into the skin of her buttocks." The grease traveled through her internal organs, and she died a week later.