Mother-of-four Helen Comin, 50, died after she was wrongly given a potent painkiller after a boob implant procedure at a private clinic in Italy
A mum-of-four tragically died after she was wrongly given a dose of powerful painkillers after a boob implant.
Helen Comin, 50, had undergone plastic surgery at a private clinic in Italy but suffered a huge heart attack after she was given a potent painkiller by medics. The mum underwent what was meant to be simple breast surgery- to switch her old implants with new ones. The situation turned tragic when she suffered from a cardiac arrest just an hour after the operation. She was rushed into intensive care at the San Giacomo Hospital, where she had undergone the op, in Castelfranco Veneto, around 47km north of Venice.
Helen underwent her boob procedure on September 5, 2024, but sadly died five days later. It has since emerged that while she was still under general anaesthetic, Helen was given a dose of the potent painkiller Sufentanil.
The morphine-like drugs crashed her respiratory system and triggered her fatal cardiac arrest, according to prosecutors. Experts say the drug should never be given until a patient’s system is clear from anaesthetic.
The owner of the clinic, Surgeon Antonio Di Vincenzo, and an anaesthetist, Fabio Toffoletto, have both been identified as manslaughter suspects by prosecutors in Treviso. They are accused of wrongly using the morphine-like painkiller and providing negligent post-op care.
Mysteriously all medical evidence of the drug being administered to Helen had disappeared from the clinic’s records. Investigators only discovered it had been used when they reportedly reviewed a recorded phone call from a nurse to the clinic. The investigation into her tragic death will continue.
A young British woman lost her life after she went abroad to have boob surgery. Donna Butterfield, 30, died after she travelled to Majorca, Spain, for a budget cosmetic procedure.
The hairdresser and aspiring model paid £6,000 for the operation at a clinic but she went into cardiac arrest during the op. The 30-year-old was rushed to hospital but tragically died.
She was in intensive care for almost two weeks before she passed away. A friend described well-travelled Donna as “an amazing beautiful person taken too soon.” A close family member added: “We’ll never get over it, we just have to learn to live with it.”
A mum of two young boys, Megan Espinoza, died during a botched plastic surgery operation. The 36-year-old went to Divino Surgery Center in Bonita, California, for a breast augmentation procedure just before Christmas 2018.
Prosecutors said the mum-of-two was given anaesthesia by nurse Heather Vass, who was not licensed to do so. During the operation, the patient, who was a nursery teacher, went into cardiac arrest at around 2.20pm on December 19, 2018.
However, Dr Carlos Chacon, who was performing the surgery, delayed contacting the emergency services for three hours, instead calling in other doctors for advice while he left the room to see four other patients between 3.15pm and 5pm.