On December 20, 2024, an Illinois medical malpractice jury returned its verdict against a plastic surgeon in the amount of $56 million, which was increased to $66.262 million once interest was added in. The Illinois medical malpractice trial lasted one week after which the jury deliberated for three hours before rendering its verdict. The case involved a 39-year-old mother of four who underwent a “tummy tuck” liposuction procedure in the plastic surgeon’s office that resulted in post-operative bleeding that went undiscovered and untreated, resulting in the death of the patient.
The surgery took place on November 23, 2019 and lasted four hours. There was only a nurse in the post-op recovery area where the woman was brought after surgery, where she was found to have abnormal bleeding and lowering blood pressure. The plastic surgeon allegedly failed to examine the patient and address the issues, and instead began surgery on another patient. Less than five hours after the patient’s surgery had ended, an ambulance was called and the patient was transferred to the hospital where it was discovered that more than half of her blood supply was found in her abdomen from internal bleeding. Despite blood transfusions and additional surgery, the woman died the next day.
The plaintiff’s Illinois medical malpractice attorneys stated after the verdict, “The negligence of this medical practitioner is so egregious that the jury knew they had to do the right thing for this innocent family. The jury obviously is sending a clear message that Dr. Sayeg ignored obvious signs that this patient was dying, and yet he and the entire team did nothing to save her. This family should be celebrating the holidays with their healthy wife and mother. Instead, it is another Christmas without the person who meant so much to all of them. When they lost her, they lost everything.”
Liposuction Fatalities
A study published in 2000 stated: “Responding aesthetic plastic surgeons (917 of 1200) reported 95 uniquely authenticated fatalities in 496,245 lipoplasties. In this census survey, the mortality rate computed to 1 in 5224, or 19.1 per 100,000. A virtually identical 20.3 per 100,000 mortality rate was obtained in a 1997 random survey commissioned by the parent society. Pulmonary thromboembolism remains as the major killer (23.4+/-2.6 percent); lacking consistent medical examiners’ toxicology data, the putative role of high-dose lidocaine cardiotoxicity could not be ascertained. Where so stated, many deaths occurred during the first night after discharge home; prudence suggests vigilant observation for residual “hangover” from sedative/anesthetic drugs after lengthy procedures. Taken together, these two independent surveys peg the late 1990s mortality rate from liposuction at about 20 per 100,000, or 1 in every 5000 procedures.”
If you or a loved one may have been injured (or worse) as a result of liposuction malpractice in Illinois or in another U.S. state, you should promptly find an Illinois medical malpractice lawyer, or a medical malpractice lawyer in your state, who may investigate your liposuction medical malpractice claim for you and represent you or your loved one in a liposuction medical malpractice case, if appropriate.
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