Liposuction Took Life

A woman in her 20s, who wanted to lose weight, died during a liposuction procedure (the surgical vacuuming of fat) at a clinic.

Han, a 27-year-old auxiliary nurse, was undergoing a liposuction operation at Y plastic surgery in Yeok-sam-dong, Seoul and died of Dyspnoea (respiratory distress) and abnormal heart condition on her way to the nearest general hospital around 8:30 pm on Feb.5.

According to the Seoul Kangnam Police Station, she received general anesthesia before the operation on her thigh around 6:15 pm and all of a sudden she appeared to have respiratory distress after injected with Tumescent, which helps better fat vacuuming, on her upper belly around 7:30 pm for the next procedure on her belly.

The 155㎝ and 58㎏ woman received a check-up for a liposuction after consultation at this clinic at the end of last month. She paid 9 million won (4 million won for the thigh and 5 million won for the belly) with her credit card and came to Seoul for the operation in the afternoon.

She was an auxiliary nurse at Kwang-ju military hospital and did not tell her family about the operation.

The police requested the National Institute of Scientific Investigation (NISI) for an autopsy in order to examine into the cause of death.

The Y plastic surgery has exclusively performed a liposuction to the extent that the procedure accounted for 50% of all the operations. It has operated even until 9 pm for workers on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Hong Jun-pyo, plastic surgery professor at Asan Medical Center in Seoul, said, “Basically, liposuction is to correct the body figure by partially vacuuming fat. It`s not an operation for permanent weight loss.”

The number of liposuction follows the jobs on double eyelids, nose, and jaw in the operation frequency. It is known that one or two die every year during the procedure.

In-Jik Cho cij1999@donga.com