CBS Denver reports that an Asian American teen who went in for breast augmentation surgery was left with brain damage.
18-year-old Emmalyn Nguyen suffered two cardiac arrests and brain damage during her cosmetic surgery.
Medical professionals overseeing her procedure only called 911 after five hours.
Nguyen’s $6,000 breast augmentation was performed on 1 August at Kim’s Greenwood Village office, Colorado Aesthetics and Plastic Surgery in Denver by Geoffrey Kim.
The young teen’s family are now filing a lawsuit against the doctor and a nurse anesthetist.
“We just really want to know what happened, what was the truth, what happened back there”, said Nguyen’s mother Lynn Fam.
Fam added that she was “fine” with her daughter having the surgery as she “didn’t think anything like that was going to happen to [our] daughter.”
“I was a teenage girl once before,” she said. “To us it felt safe.” Many friends and family members had undergone the same procedure.
David Woodruff, the family’s attorney, claims that Nguyen was left unattended and unobserved for 15 minutes after being given anesthesia.
The defence claims that Dr Kim revived Nguyen from cardiac arrest by performing CPR. However, Woodruff contends this and claims medical records show Nguyen went into cardiac arrest a second time minutes later. 911 was still not called despite her “neurologically unresponsive.”
Five hours later, 911 was called and an ambulance transported the teenager to Littleton Adventist Hospital. 22 days later Nguyen was transported to e a rehabilitation hospital where she receives 24 hour medical car.
Nguyen’s current state is ‘minimally conscious” and she is unable to speak, walk, eat or take care of herself.
The family fear she has suffered severe brain damage and will remain in the condition for the rest of her life.
Fam claims that she and her family members were misled by staff members about what happened.
”Everything went fine, the only thing is we didn’t proceed with the procedure because her heart rate dropped but she is fine,” she said, adding that Dr Kim told her “everything is fine, Emmalyn is fine, everything is good. She’s young, she’s healthy, she’ll be okay, it’s just taking her long to wake up.”
“To me it’s a miracle she pulled through all that and she is still fighting this. I don’t know how they can sleep at night knowing they did this to her. They ruined Emmalyn’s life, not just hers but all of ours.”
Sonny Nguyen, the teen’s father, said “I’m a little speechless about how they can wait that long. I’m a little shocked they wait that long for help.”
