Plastic Surgery Nightmares

Nip, tuck, fill, freeze--the promise of eternal youth has never been so great. But in today's hurting economy, greedy doctors are cutting corners and taking advantage in shocking ways.

Tears fall down Deyanira Polledo's face as she gently opens her sage paper gown. Furious red scars rip through the skin around her nipples, the left of which resembles a decayed mushroom molding off its stem. Slashing wounds, pink and raw, carve deep into the flesh under her breasts.

On March 19, Polledo walked into one of the ubiquitous cosmetic-surgery centers in Miami to have her breasts lifted and augmented with saline implants. All her friends—economy be damned—were doing it; the price here, at this dark office blasting Spanish telenovelas, was right. She never laid eyes on her doctor—who, she would later discover, holds a medical degree from Cuba, did only a one-year internship in this country, and has no board certification—until two minutes before he sliced her open. Even then, he didn't reveal his name. "I was scared, but I stayed," says Polledo. "Something in my heart told me to get out, but then I thought about the money I would give up." Seven thousand dollars—nonrefundable—had already been charged to her MasterCard.

Four days later, her nipples turned black. Her breasts were burning, flaming red. She hastened back to the squat concrete building covered in blue advertising banners, assuming the doctor would be as alarmed as she was. But he refused to see her. The clinic's owner, who is not a physician, handed over a prescription for antibiotics and sent her away. Three days after that, Polledo was rushed to the emergency room with a 107.5-degree fever from a raging infection devouring the flesh behind her implants. Her anonymous doctor had severed the arteries pumping blood to her nipples. She lay in the hospital for a month—unable to work or make payments on her home—with an IV feeding powerful drugs straight to her heart. Then she came to the office of Dr. Albert Gallerani, a board-certified plastic surgeon, who is treating her pro bono...

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