A 19-year-old woman from Colorado has sadly died after being left permanently brain damaged as the result of botched breast enhancement surgery, PEOPLE reports.
Emmalyn Nguyen of Thornton, Colorado, went to undergo the procedure on August 1 2019. According to a lawsuit filed by Nguyen's family against Dr Geoffrey Kim and nurse Rex Meeker, the then-18-year-old was administered anesthesia and subsequently left "unobserved" for 15 minutes.
According to the lawsuit, employees at the plastic surgery office "discovered that Ms. Nguyen’s lips and face were blue and that cyanosis was quickly spreading to her upper extremities and torso."
Nguyen's heartbroken family previously spoke out about their daughter's condition in the video below:Woodruff said that on October 2 Nguyen developed severe pneumonia, which caused her to go into cardiac arrest. Though she was resuscitated, she sadly died on October 4, according to CBS Denver.
“Emmalyn’s parents and siblings are heartbroken,” the attorney representing Nguyen’s parents, David Woodruff said per CBS Denver. “This turn of events was sadly unexpected.”
She had lived “in a permanent ‘semi-conscious’ state” from the date of her surgery in August 2019 until her death on October 4.
David Woodruff told PEOPLE back in December that staff at the plastic surgery center allegedly performed CPR twice on Nguyen and waited five-and-a-half hours to call 911.
“It appears that Emmalyn stopped breathing because of improper anesthesia, administered by a nurse instead of an anesthesiologist,” the attorney said. “But the worst thing is she appears to have been left unattended, not breathing, for up to 15 minutes. It caused her to suffer a massive anoxic brain injury.”
“It is incomprehensible that a team of medical professionals, including a plastic surgeon, a nurse-anesthetist, and multiple nurses, would not call 911 for five and a half hours after performing CPR on their patient who had gone into cardiac arrest twice,” Woodruff continued.
Though Kim's medical license was initially suspended, he reached an agreement with the Colorado Medical Board back in March that would allow him to continue to practice with certain restrictions under a probationary status for the next three years, per CBS Denver.
In January, Meeker voluntarily agreed to discontinue the administering of anesthesia, but has been allowed to continue to practice nursing.
Following Nguyen's death, the family's lawsuit will become a claim of wrongful death, Woodruff told KDVR. “Medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States,” he said. “Emmalyn’s parents believe it is important to tell Emmalyn’s story, not only to bring her some justice but also to help prevent this from ever happening to another patient.”
