American woman, 65, is left with $75,000 in medical bills after botched surgery in Mexico left her ‘disfigured’ with breast implants and a Brazilian butt lift she did not want
An American woman who went to Mexico for discounted skin tightening surgery has described her horror when she woke up to discover that doctors had given her a boob job and a Brazilian butt lift.
Kimberly McCormick, 65, returned to the Mexico Bariatric Center six years after undergoing successful weight-loss surgery at the clinic.
But this time she woke up after surgery with a breast enlargement and a butt lift that she didn’t ask for.
“I called my daughter crying because I woke up with huge breasts, which if I lived to be 500, I would never have wanted,” McCormick said during an interview with host Natasha Zouves on NewsNation.
Kimberly McCormick (left) and her daughter, Misty Ann (right) say they were attacked and extorted by hospital staff after the botched surgery
McCormick, 65, woke up in Mexico after what was supposed to be skin tightening surgery following weight loss, only to find she had gotten a boob job and BBL
McCormick had returned to Tijuana Hospital to undergo several procedures to remove 10 inches of excess skin following her 150-pound weight loss.
The surgery only cost $13,000 in Mexico, while in the US they would have cost more than $50,000
American doctors now say it is McCormick a a total amount of $75,000 to undo the damage done in Mexico.
She said she woke up in the hospital and realized something was wrong lungs partially collapsed while she was underwater.
“The leg lift, the arm lift, the breast lift and the tummy tuck, everything was mapped out and ready to go,” she said, referring to the marks her surgeon made on the body parts that needed adjustment.
‘I was operated on at four o’clock in the afternoon. And apparently I didn’t get out of the operating room until 2:30 in the morning.’
Her daughter, Misty Ann McCormick, said doctors initially prevented her from visiting her mother after the botched surgery.
She said doctors did not come to see her mother for several days after the operation.
When Misty Ann successfully reached her mother’s room, she found her in a terrible condition.
Her “lips were blue” and her “nose was gray,” she said. Her oxygen tank was not connected.
McCormick said that when she saw a nurse after her surgery, she said to her, “Oh chica, you’re so sexy.”
The Mexico Bariatric Center, where McCormick had her surgery, is one of the leading bariatric surgery hospitals in medical tourism
“Well, I’m 65 years old, I’m not chica and sexy wasn’t my goal,” the patient recalled thinking.
“I was mortified, just mortified.”
When Misty Ann confronted the hospital about what happened to her mother, she said she was physically removed from the premises by large, armed men.
“I was basically abused, hit with machine guns, kicked in the ribs, kicked between the legs and physically thrown out of the hospital,” she said.
Once outside, she said there were “probably fifteen police officers running towards the giant man” who threw her out. They “all spoke Spanish,” she said.
‘One stood there with the gun (pointed) at me. I was allowed to get into an Uber, but the police didn’t help me.”
She added that hospital staff further extorted her and her mother by forcing them to pay an additional $2,500 more than the upfront price for the procedures, claiming that Kimberly had stayed longer than expected.
The duo were threatened with arrest and prison if they did not cough up the money, and Kimberly was forced to sign a form stating that she wanted to undergo the unauthorized surgeries she had undergone.
Misty Ann further added that once she and her mother got back across the US border, US authorities were no longer helpful.
“When we came back to America, we found no help. “We were laughed at by the San Diego police, who told me to call the TIjuana police — the same police that just machine-gun my cheek,” she said.
McCormick, now back in the US, is looking at a $75,000 hospital bill to repair her ‘disfigured’ body
Misty Ann said U.S. police were unhelpful as the mother and daughter tried to figure out next steps
When the couple returned to San Diego, Kimberly went to the emergency room to be treated for a serious infection she contracted after being kept in an unsanitary room at the Mexican hospital.
McCormick’s tragic story is an example of a lateral development of the Mexican medical tourism industry.
Mexico Bariatric Center is one of the largest providers of medical tourism in the world of bariatric surgery. All-inclusive packages are available for international patients traveling to undergo cosmetic surgery at a lower rate than in their home country.
The medical tourism industry, which exists in Europe and Asia as well as North America, is estimated at $70 billion.