Source: dailymail.co.uk
A New York man died while undergoing liposuction at a clinic in the Dominican Republic on Monday.
Manuel Núñez, 29, a restaurant worker living in New York City, traveled back to his native land for his third liposuction.
His mother Teresa de Jesús Batista Ramírez told Dominican outlet CDN: ‘[I told him] “Do not do that lipo, you’ve already done two. Don’t you have anything else better to do with your money,” and he told me, “mom, I have my doctor.”
‘I told him give it to me better so that I can eat with it and what he did was that he stuck his tongue out and told me goodbye.’
Núñez showed up early for his scheduled 9am appointment at Caribbean Plastic Surgery in Santo Domingo with Dr. Oscar Polanco, who since 2015 has had three other patients die while undergoing surgery with him.
Family members, including his mother, were informed by the staff approximately at 6pm local time that Núñez was still unconscious, according to Telemundo 47.
The physicians tried to ease the family’s worries by telling them that it was ‘normal’.
Batista Ramírez knew her son was in danger when his skin turned yellow.
Hospital director Dr. Martha Vargas said in a statement that Núñez suffered respiratory problems after ‘the patient underwent body liposculpture plus fat transfer to the gluteal region’ and that the staff ‘immediately proceeded to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation.’
The family is left looking from answers from a doctor who had two women die within a one-week period in 2015 at a separate practice that he once ran and has since been shut down by authorities.
Polanco was charged with involuntary manslaughter for the deaths of Ely Peña, 24, and Sara de los Ángeles Martínez Rodríguez, 39.
However, the case was dismissed because there was not sufficient evidence. But he was ordered to pay the families $2million Dominican pesos or $450,000 USD.
The doctor, who had been denounced by the Dominican Society of Plastic Surgery for falsely operating as a surgeon, was accused in 2016 in the death of Ramona Franco Cruz, 24, during another plastic surgery.
The Public Health Ministry is investigating Núñez’s death. No arrests have been announced.