Two women have filed complaints against an Arizona plastic surgeon after claiming he botched them while DRUNK!
In two separate lawsuits, 51-year-old Wendy Ellsworth and 32-year-old Alicia Armijo presented very similar stories. According to their suits, they both went under the knife at the hands of Dr. Bradley Becker in Glendale — and thought he smelled like liquor. Ellsworth and Armijo’s complaints, filed on September 30 and October 2 respectively, accused the surgeon of medical negligence, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress — with the elder woman claiming her surgery results gave her “significant anxiety”.
Now, months after their lawsuits were filed in Maricopa County Superior Court, the ladies are telling their stories. And they’re downright DISTURBING!
Speaking to People, Wendy said she was taken into surgery on October 5, 2021, but things quickly took a dark turn. She claims Dr. Becker “reeked of alcohol and appeared to be intoxicated” — and even had “an altered state of mind”. Compared to their relatively normal consultations, this was said to have left her “confused” and “frightened” — as you can imagine!
After saving up $16k for the procedure because her insurance wouldn’t cover it, Wendy did her research and landed on Dr. Becker — a decision she would come to regret:
“He’d come so highly recommended in Facebook groups. I even checked the medical board and didn’t see any complaints. He told me, ‘I can pull you so tight’ … [the day of the surgery] he came in and didn’t mark me up.”
When she asked him why he wasn’t making marks on her skin like plastic surgeons normally do to gauge where they’re going to cut, Wendy claimed, he haphazardly ran a marker across her belly and hips. Despite this disturbing behavior and his alleged intoxication, she said she “felt trapped that she was already prepped for surgery and didn’t know what to do.” She decided to go through with the procedure because she knew she’d just spent $16k she’d never get back. So awful!
Related: Adrienne Bailon Hilariously Claps Back At Plastic Surgery Comment!
Detailing her disappointing tummy tuck results, she told the outlet:
“He basically left me with two shelves of skin on my hips to wear, so that even when I wear jeans, you can see where he’d cut — it looks like a clear shelf. I have scars going up the middle of my stomach and from hip to hip, and he left tons of stitches hanging out of my body. When I unwrapped my body on the fourth day I just cried. He’d lowered my bellybutton by three inches, and it was this puckered, horribly sutured ugly scar … I was horrified to see it, with chunks of skin draping off my body.”
Sadly, she claimed her breast lift fared just as badly:
“My nipples weren’t even close to being even. There is a reasonable expectation when you pay for a procedure like this that you’ll get what you paid for … [Dr. Becker] told me everyone has skin sitting on their laps, or that it was just swelling and it could take up to two years to go away.”
OMG! What a wild excuse!
The even more upsetting part, though, is she isn’t the only person who’s run into this issue with Dr. Becker! Alicia found Wendy’s comments about her experience in a Facebook group, and was shocked to see someone had the same experience as she did. Just like Wendy’s complaints, she said the surgeon “was not acting at all like he had in their initial consultation” and that he “was not in any state of mind to be able to perform the surgery”. She also cited being “afraid” as the reason she didn’t back out:
“I’d actually called the office for a refund two weeks before my procedure because another woman warned me about him.”
She at least asked — though the doctor rejected the request. After she was refused a refund for the expensive procedure, she went under the knife of the surgeon. And yes, she says, he had a “very strong smell of alcohol” on his breath. She also said “his markings were different than the ones he’d made before” in their consultations, but he told her “don’t worry” as he was going to get all her skin and “pull it as tight as possible”.
Uh… eyeballing a surgery?! Doesn’t sound like a good idea…
Just like Ellsworth, Armijo claims to have been left with a “shelf” of skin and lots of unsightly scars. She also has contracted infections from her wounds, something she got the surgery to try and avoid in the first place:
“My body is just changed forever in a way that I wasn’t prepared for. I got a tummy tuck to resolve the skin infections and I’m left with more skin infections … my emotional and mental health has taken a really big toll.”
So sad!
The two ladies are determined to speak out against Dr. Becker — as they’ve found more alleged victims. Wendy told the outlet:
“I’m in contact with over a dozen women at this point. I have other women that need to be heard, and I’m not going to stop until every woman’s voice is heard. This is not going away.”
The elder woman said she’s been in therapy to deal with the physical and mental wounds that “run deep” after the surgery. Alicia added that her own experience has given her anxiety about future surgeries. Even if she could afford to fix the issues — she doesn’t know if she could handle trying again:
“The recovery was so hard, and to have to go through that again, I just don’t see that I can … I’m just going to have to be mutilated… I worked really hard for my body to not look like this. I wish I could go back in time and not done the surgery.”
Ugh… heartbreaking!
You can see before and after photos of both women’s surgeries HERE. It’s unbelievable the differences you can see! What do U think about this, Perezcious readers? Sound OFF (below).
[Image via TLC UK/YouTube]
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