A Florida teenager who fell into a coma last year after having surgery for breast implants is now home with her family, but can hardly speak and can't move on her own, the Miami Herald reported Sunday.
Linda Pérez was 18-years-old when she went to have breast augmentation surgery in August 2013. An hour after the surgery Pérez suffered brain damage and was in a coma for several weeks. Pérez's family was allowed to take her home in November, but doctors are unsure if she will make a full recovery.
"I'm sick that she can't be like she used to be," Mariela Diaz, Pérez's mother, told the Miami Herald.
Pérez, now 19, is extremely frail, thin and is under 24-hour nursing care, the Miami Herald reported. She has to be carried around and can only say a few words.
"She goes into depression and crying," Diaz told the Miami Herald. "She sees that she cannot walk, and when she realizes what happened to her she cries."
The girl's family said they are going to file a lawsuit against Coral Gables Cosmetic Center for medical malpractice.
Jacob Freiman, Pérez's doctor, said during the procedure the anesthetist told him the teenager's heart rate was "very low" and he had to giver her atropine along with chest compressions to keep her alive, the Miami Herald reported.
Within an hour of the operation Pérez was taken to the emergency room at Mercy Hospital. Pérez ended up in a coma after suffering multiple complications. Doctors at one point urged the girl's family to take her off life support. But Pérez came out of her coma in October.
Freiman says that Pérez withheld critical medical information from him that would have helped determined how he performed the surgery.
Pérez, who has a 4-year-old son, had a similar reaction to anesthesia when she gave birth. Frieman said Pérez only told him she had suffered seizures eight years ago but currently had no problems or issues with anesthesia, the Miami Herald reported.
The anesthetist, Mario Alberto Diaz, was the defendant in another malpractice lawsuit involving the death of a patient after a buttock augmentation 35 years ago, the Miami Herald reported.
Pérez's mother said her daughter is making improvements. She can now eat without a feeding tube, and can move her feet.
"I still have hope because she is alive and she's home," the mother told the Miami Herald.
