I was an hour from death after having a £3,000 butt lift in UK clinic – it almost left my five-year-old an orphan
A MUM was left an hour from death after having a £3,000 butt lift at a UK clinic.
Bonnie-Louise Cooper, 27, had liquid filler injected into each bum cheek through a large cannula which is said to help add volume to the area.
After being “too scared to fly overseas to Turkey” for the procedure, the single mum to five-year-old son Kash believed she was doing the sensible thing by opting to have it done in England.
And when she found a clinic used by Katie Price on London’s elite Harley Street – a spot famous for its plastic surgeon work – Bonnie thought she was in safe hands.
But the night before, she was text a postcode for the practitioner’s “second clinic” in Romford, Essex, where she was told the BBL would take place.
And when she arrived, a man was there ready to inject her with half a litre of filler instead of two women she believed would be carrying out the procedure.
The beautician from Swanage in Dorset, was told that her liquid BBL was non-invasive, pain free and required zero down time, it’s claimed.
But Bonnie said it was “nothing compared to what I [have ever] experienced” as she endured 40 minutes of agony.
Soon after, she became “delirious” and was sweating, vomiting and fainting.
Bonnie was then blue-lighted to hospital where she was diagnosed with rapid onset sepsis and told “you could die within the hour”.
Recalling the horror, Bonnie said: “I remember thinking of my son who is completely dependent on me. I started crying.
“He would be an orphan, I had to get home for him.”
The standard surgical BBL involves the patient having fat harvested from their own body and re-injected into the buttock area.
A non-invasive liquid BBL uses a range of dermal fillers including hyaluronic acid which is injected into each buttock using a large cannula to add volume.
The liquid BBL is promoted as relatively pain free because the filler contains lidocaine, a local anaesthetic.
Bonnie told The Sun: “I was told I was having 250ml of filler injected into each buttock. In total that is half a litre of filler injected into my bottom. That’s a lot.
“I was given some lidocaine, but I wasn’t prepared for the pain of the cannula injection.
“I’m a beautician and I wasn’t asked the standard health questions I ask for when I do basic eyebrow dying.
“I gave birth and thought that was the most painful experience. It’s nothing compared to what I experienced.”
Bonnie was later told by the hospital that prescribed pain blocker lidocaine wasn’t actually what had been injected.
She said: “To this day I still don’t know what was injected into my bum.
“It could have been any combination of fillers or dermal injectables.”
According to Bonnie her liquid BBL injections were administered while she stood up in a ‘beauty salon environment’ not an operating room and caused unrelenting pain.
“It’s stomach-churning pain,” she added.
“I could feel the cannula needing to be pushed across my bottom under the skin. It wasn’t what I expected.
“By the time I got home I was screaming in agony and couldn’t get out of the car.
“I started vomiting and fainted trying to get into my house.
“I rang the clinic in agony. They told me they’d send antibiotics around the next day and to go to bed.”
Bonnie claims she wasn’t given any after care instructions and was sent home without antibiotics.
In hospital, Bonnie had an emergency MRI scan which revealed muscle damage and she needed to be referred to Salisbury Plastics for dissolving procedures.
It took almost five days before she was well enough to be sent home in November last year.
“I had to take two different types of antibiotics for another month and am still on painkillers today,” she said.
“The antibiotics promised by the clinic never arrived and I was never told, despite asking what type of filler they used.
“The hospital tried to call the salon, but they didn’t answer. It was awful.
“I felt like I’d been thrown to the wolves. I was left with no aftercare and no follow-up.”
The aesthetics clinic, which The Sun is not naming, advertises ‘Brazilian Bum Lift’ on their list of procedures.
The highest amount of filler offered in just one appointment is a whopping 300ml costing £5,600.
Top-ups are also available – with customers being able to get another 60ml injected for £1,600.
When contacted for comment, the clinic told The Sun they are no longer running.