Colorado woman warns of out-of-state surgery risks
On the outside, Mariam Aldaraji is all smiles and laughter spending time with her husband, twin boys and two daughters. But inside she knows she could have lost it all.
"At that time, I did feel like, yes, I'm going to leave soon," Aldaraji explained.
A wound in her stomach developed necrosis and much of her body tissue was dying.
"I used to wake up at 4 a.m. from all that pain all that pressure feeling that things are moving under there really deep," Aldaraji said. "That's when I realized the necrotic tissues were eating each other."
Two weeks earlier, she was with her family in Miami.
She found a board-certified plastic surgeon at Seduction Cosmetic Center to perform what's often called "a mommy makeover."
"I was looking for a better body, you know, especially after four kids." She added.
Her husband says when Aldaraji woke up from that surgery, he immediately knew something was not right.
"I go up the stairs, they bring her to me in the wheelchair. There is blood on her face, her hand. First time I saw something like that. She's not in an accident or something," he said.
The family had arranged to stay for five days following the surgery, and early signs of a problem began to show.
The incision on her stomach had turned hard and black.
Aldaraji says, at a checkup four days following the surgery, doctors told her it was just dry skin and sent her home to Colorado with an antibiotic ointment.
From there, things got worse, and she struggled to find a doctor locally that would help her.
"I was like, nobody is willing to touch me, not even an urgent care. What's going on? They are telling me it's necrosis. They said, 'oh, go ahead and send pictures. Never put doctor on the phone," she said.
While Aldaraji claims the out-of-state cosmetic center continued to deny any problem, her stomach felt as though it was eating away at itself. Desperate, she reached out to Dr. Samir Hasan, a board-certified plastic surgeon and owner of the Beauty Blade in Denver.
"Not everyone is just going to say, 'yeah,' because, one, they are afraid of liability and, two, they don't always know what it is," Dr. Hasan said.
Despite his own concerns, he agreed to help
"I felt like we could help this woman. She had a major abdominal wound. She was in distress. She wasn't getting help from anyone. I generally felt like she was someone that needed help," Dr. Hasan added.
The doctor found the necrosis was at her abdominal wall and would soon reach organs.
"She potentially would have ended up in a hospital, I think, if she didn't have a reconstruction and a drainage of the fluid that was pooling under the skin," he said.
Aldaraji has since had multiple surgeries to fix the botched tummy tuck, and she has spent countless hours searching for some way to hold the surgery center accountable, finding it was largely a legal dead end.
"It really depends. Florida does not necessarily require its doctors to have medical malpractice insurance. There's an alternative that allows doctors to set some money aside in escrow in case something happens, but the amount that they are required to set aside is fairly low," CBS Colorado Legal Analyst Raj Chohan explained.
Chohan says attorneys may be hesitant to take these cases because, without malpractice insurance, there's little cost benefit.
"In order to get an attorney on board in the state of Florida or anywhere else, that attorney is going to have to be convinced that the significant time and money that they are going to have to put into the case is going to be rewarded on the back end with some kind of judgement that is going to pay their bill," Cohan added.
Still, Florida sees a jump in cosmetic tourism ever year.
With out-of-state patients flying in from across the country to go under the knife, they don't always know what they're getting into.
"Most of the people who are marketing themselves as plastic surgeons, they are cosmetic surgeons, meaning you didn't have to go through plastic surgery training. You could have gone through any medical specialty, and then got a certification through a short course weekend course." Dr. Hasan said.
The appeal, Hasan says, largely comes down to cost.
"People see a practice that says we are going to do your dream procedure, your mommy makeover, your tummy tuck for $3,000, and they are doing 10 of them a day," Hasan said, explaining it's likely these surgeons aren't performing the procedure on each patient who visits these types of practices.
While Aldaraji did research the center online, she found only positive reviews -- which she now believes might be fabricated. She also spoke with previous patients but none of them recent.
As Aldaraji struggles to lift her children at times and fighting a new anxiety about her body, she wishes she would've done more.
"I wake up in the middle of the night hoping it's not ripped open again," Aldaraji said.
CBS Colorado reached out to Seduction Cosmetic Center on multiple occasions and struggled to reach anyone in charge. On our last attempt, we were told the center had no comment.
Aldaraji understands she may never see justice in a courtroom but believes sharing her story will serve as a warning to others and may be enough to prompt change.
"And stop them from what they are doing," Aldaraji said.
