Plastic Disaster
By: Kurtis Ming
(CBS 13) SACRAMENTO
http://cbs13.com/consumer/local_story_325195457.html
You trust your lives with them, but should you?
How do you know if you can really trust your doctor? Several patients
of one plastic surgeon did, but they didn't know that he had a
criminal past, and battled personal addictions.
Our investigation started two months ago after we got an e-mail from a
viewer--a patient of this one doctor.
The deeper we moved into the story, the more we discovered patient
after patient all with similar stories.
Some went to him with a desire for beauty.
"He really wanted me to look better," said "Bobbie", a patient
Others went to the doctor to their bodies back together.
"The discovery of my cancer was something that was unexpected," said
Linda Starr, patient.
None of these plastic surgery patients expected the horror.
"It looked like somebody cut me with a machete," said "Marion", a
patient.
They had no idea there doctor was troubled.
"He was leading the life of an alcoholic, he's a self admitted
alcoholic," said Mara Faust, state prosecutor.
"I don't want him to touch anyone else again and hurt anyone like he
did my wife," said Ken Mikulecky, a patient's husband.
In 1997 cancer came as a surprise to Linda Starr. The same day her
right breast was removed plastic surgeon Dr. Brian West performed the
reconstruction. It was an operation, she was told, had a low risk for
infection--less than a one percent chance. The recovery time was
expected to be three weeks then she'd go in for cancer treatment.
"I was told it was very im****tant I had Chemo and radiation," said
Linda.
Weeks after her operation, instead of a healed wound, she was
infected. Her incision turned green, purple and black.
Without anesthesia and without warning she says Dr. West took a
scalpel to her sewed up incision and cut her open.
"You're coming apart. You're seeing parts of your body, you're not
meant to see," said Linda.
She was left to heal but the infection kept growing, tunneling through
her body into her new breast, and deep across her stomach.
Then, instead of diagnosing the type of infection she says Dr. West
turned hostile.
"He didn't want to deal with it, he would be very harsh when he would
pull the sutures out," said Linda.
This went on for 5-months. Linda's gaping wounds expanded to leave
this massive hole in her stomach and breast. She says her decaying
flesh and tissue made her house smell like death.
"I could smell it on the bandages. It smelt awful," said Linda.
Depressed, feeling ignored, seeing her body waste away, she carried
out a plan at her next doctor's appointment so Dr. West would listen.
"I grabbed his tie and he said, 'what's the matter?' I said 'I'm
dying.' And he said, 'what do you want me to do?' And I said 'put me
in the hospital'. I need to go in the hospital.
Linda was admitted, and that's when she found out the scope of the
infection. She says it was so bad that she had to be given a blood
transfusion.
Linda eventually recovered. But remember that cancer treatment she
desperately needed?
"When I had the infection, they couldn't do it. I needed to be healed
so I could have the chemo or radiation until the wound healed," said
Linda.
Linda would learn the cancer did spread. She says she was given two
years to live. So far, she's beat the odds but she knows it's just a
matter of time.
"I was so angry to learn it had spread," said Linda.
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