The family of a Tennessee woman who reportedly died just over two hours into her Brazilian Butt Lift surgery alleges that the Miami doctor involved shouldn’t have performed the procedure in the first place.
Erica Russell’s estate filed a lawsuit on Monday, March 4, against Dr. John Sampson of Coral Gables’ Seduction Cosmetic Center. It comes after the mother of five died while undergoing the popular high-risk procedure where fat is inserted into the buttocks.
The 33-year-old went into cardiac arrest not too long after Sampson started the surgery on the night of June 16, 2021, NBC News and Miami Herald reported, citing the filing. The lawsuit accuses Sampson of puncturing the patient’s bladder, liver, and intestines with a cannula, a thin tube that drains fluids from a person’s body.
Her cause of death was listed as bleeding and pulmonary fat embolism. A recent study from 2022 revealed that South Florida is a hot spot for BBL deaths in the US.
Russell was allegedly the seventh patient on Sampson’s schedule. The suit noted that his first procedure that day was as early as 6:32 a.m., and Russell was on the table about 14 hours later, per the reports.
In the documents, the family is blasting Seduction for wrongfully advertising Sampson as a surgeon, according to the outlets. In an application sent to the Florida Health Department in May 2020, the cosmetic facility specifically labeled Sampson as a “designated physician.”
In this role, Sampson was expected to make sure that the safety and health-related requirements were up to par, NBC News reported. A month later, Sampson sent a letter to state officials saying that he’s not a surgeon at Seduction — which is also a defendant in this case.
“At all times material hereto, defendant Sampson was not approved to perform surgical procedures at Seduction,” Russell’s family lawsuit stated, the outlet reported. “Despite that, between April 2021 and June 2021, defendant Sampson performed plastic surgery procedures at defendant Seduction.”
According to the Herald, health officials suspended his plastic surgery board certification in 2022. Michael Lavine, an attorney who assisted in filing the suit, doubled down on the family’s feelings about Sampson’s alleged actions.
“What happened to Ms. Russell should have never happened,” Levine told the outlet. “This is assembly line medicine, and that’s what killed her.”
