When Thaynara Braz Alves, 28, went in for a tummy tuck and a breast augmentation earlier this year, her three children thought they’d only have to wait a few weeks before she was fit enough to play with them.
Heartbreakingly, they would never see their mother again.
The young woman, from Brazil, died less than 24 hours after her surgery from a catastrophic cardiac arrest.
The Brazilian clinic she was operated on had passed a routine inspection from authorities just two weeks prior.
But, it turns out, Ms Alves’ surgeon had multiple previous lawsuits taken against him for mutilation and improper surgical technique. The police are now opening an investigation into Ms Alves’ case.
Thaynara Braz Alves was on her first trip back to Brazil in three years to get the procedure. She is survived by her three children aged 12, seven and two.
Ms Alves, who is originally from Brazil but lived in Belgium, was one of a growing number of people who are travelling across international borders for cosmetic procedures.
Brazil performs the second most plastic surgeries in the world, just behind the United States. The industry has increased 10 percent each year since 2010, CNBC reported.
But procedures in the South American country cost less than half what they do in America. This s one reason why roughly 6.9 percent of all cosmetic surgeries in Brazil in 2022 were performed on foreigners.
In April, a Los Angeles mom named Tan’Quasha Williams, 30, died after a botched ‘mommy makeover’ in Mexico.
It is unclear why Ms Alves decided to return to Brazil for the first time in three years for her procedure.
She elected to have her surgeries done at the HD Bellagio clinic in the Pampulha region of Brazil, in a town called Belo Horizonte on May 28.
Her surgeries, which included a breast lift, implants, and a tummy tuck, seemed routine, her doctors reported. Still, as a precaution, Ms Alves stayed overnight in the clinic for observation.
Early in the morning on May 29, Ms Alves complained that she wasn’t feeling well – her body ached and her heart started beating irregularly. It became evident that she was going into cardiac arrest.
The staffers at the clinic called medics who successfully resuscitated her. But less than an hour later, she had a second arrest, and died, O Tempo Cidades reported.
Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart stops pumping – cutting off blood flow to the heart and other crucial regions of the body, like the brain. This accounts for the death of between 300,000 and 450,000 Americans each year.
Most commonly, this happens when someone develops an irregular heart beat, called arrhythmia, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Half of the time, people who end up in cardiac arrest had no idea they had an arrhythmia, the NIH says.
Cardiac arrest is not a common side affect of plastic surgery, but it is possible. When performed correctly, tummy tucks and breast operations are a very safe procedure – but tummy tucks are the riskier of the two.
Approximately four percent of patients who choose to have a tummy tuck have major complications, according to research from the American Society of Plastic Surgery.
That’s significantly more than the 1.4 percent average for all other cosmetic procedures.
Common complications include hematomas, blood clots, infections and lung related problems.
Tummy tuck procedures are thought to be especially risky because they involve removing large amounts of fatty tissue from the stomach. Fat contains a large number of blood vessels, meaning interfering with it risks major blood loss.
Other procedures that leave fat intact carry less risk.
The riskiness of these surgeries may be compounded if someone decides to get more than one surgery at once. If you elect to add a second procedure on top of an abdominoplasty (the medical term for tummy tuck), your risk of developing complications more than doubles – to ten percent.
There were almost 162,000 tummy tucks in the US in 2022, and since they’ve became more common over the years, it’s become safer to get them, Dr Michael Stein, a plastic surgeon at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York , told US News and reports.
But not every doctor performs these procedures with the same rigor.
HD Bellagio been subject to a government inspection two weeks ago. They reported that ‘no irregularities were found’ in the clinic.
However, there have been at least eight prior legal cases filed against Ms Alvezs’ surgeon, The Antagonist, a Brazilian political news site, reported.
This includes charges against using the wrong surgical materials, mutilation and ‘necrosis events’.
The clinic publicly stated that they are cooperating with the investigation, but shared that they believe the procedures took place ‘without complications, following all medical protocols’.
In the same statement, they expressed condolences to the Alves family. ‘We want to express our sincere condolences to the family and friends, who will continue to be welcomed by our team’.
Ms Alves was laid to rest on May 30. She was remembered by her eldest surviving daughter, 12, in an Instagram tribute.
It read: ‘I can’t wrap my head around the fact that my mom, such a beautiful and strong woman, is gone. It feels like a nightmare.’
‘Mom, if I had known that was our last hug, I would never have let you go.’
