Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - YOUNG MOM DEAD from DIET SURGERY

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

After having three children, 34-year-old Markita McIntyre is worried about her weight.  Having heard about weight loss surgery, Kiki researched the most common bariatric surgery and found it costs around $18,000 in the US. In Tijuana, Mexico, a doctor will do the same surgery for around $4,000. McIntyre has gastric sleeve surgery in Mexico and dies.  Two years later, Lisa Marie Presley, the only child of music icon, Elvis Presley, also dies from complications of bariatric surgery.  The LA County Medical Examiner says Presley suffered from a small bowel obstruction that likely developed after she underwent bariatric surgery years ago. The morning she died, Presley complained of abdominal pain and was later found unresponsive at home.  Joining Nancy Grace Today: Michael Griffith- International Criminal Defense Attorney from Amagansett NY; Former Senior Officer of the Criminal Law Committee for the International Bar  Dr. Bethany Marshall – Psychoanalyst (Beverly Hills, CA); Twitter: @DrBethanyLive Irv Brandt – Senior Inspector, US Marshals Service International Investigations Branch; Chief Inspector, DOJ Office of International Affairs, US Embassy Kingston, Jamaica; Author: “SOLO SHOT: CURSE OF THE BLUE STONE” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON IN JANUARY; ALSO “FLYING SOLO: Top of the World;” Twitter: @JackSoloAuthor  Dr. Michelle DuPre – Forensic Pathologist and former Medical Examiner, Author: “Homicide Investigation Field Guide” & “Investigating Child Abuse Field Guide”, Ret. Police Detective Lexington County Sheriff’s Department Dr. Stephenie Poris– Plastic surgeon in Orlando, FL (only female-owned and operated plastic surgery practice in Orlando); INSTAGRAM: @Stiletto_surgeon FACEBOOK: @porisplasticsurgery Alexis Terezchuck-  CrimeOnline Investigative Reporter     See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Dying to be skinny. Look around. Everybody you know is working out exhaustively. I'm fine with that. They're drastically limiting the intake of calories. Well, at least they say they are. And they're getting plastic surgery. I'm not judging. I don't care. I could probably use all of that. But tourism to other countries, plastic surgery tourism is taking over our country. Going to other countries or provinces to have cheaper plastic surgery is alarmingly ending in death.

These are very often beautiful young women moms that decide they want to change it up and they can go overseas for affordable surgery. They never see their families again. Listen, again, I'm not judging. My mother, who's about to turn 92, wanted dental implants. She told me recently she was going to Mexico to get implants. Everybody she knows in her little circle was supporting her. I was the only one that said, no, you will die in Tijuana or wherever you're going. No. She ended up going into a savings account to get the dental implants here in the U.S., but guess what? She's alive. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at

Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. Believe it or not, these moms aren't getting carjacked. Nobody's breaking into their homes to steal their VCR on their TV. They are willingly going abroad for plastic surgery tourism and coming home in a box. This was brought to the forefront just recently with the death of the beautiful, the talented Lisa Marie, Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter, the only child of Elvis Presley. There was a lot of speculation. Why did she die? Was this an overdose? Was she drunk? Elvis Presley. What is that? And if Lisa Marie can't be protected, what about us regular people?

Take a listen to our friends at NBC. Six months after the sudden passing of Lisa Marie Presley, the only child of music icon Elvis Presley, the L.A. County medical examiner saying she suffered from a small bowel obstruction that likely developed after she underwent bariatric surgery years ago. Presley had been complaining of abdominal pain on the morning of her death, according to the autopsy, and was later found unresponsive at home. Small bowel obstruction is a known long-term complication of bariatric weight loss surgery. And it was very unexpected because just literally about 72 hours before she passed away, she was making a public appearance and talking about her dad, Elvis Presley.

Take a listen to our friends at NBC and our Cut 3. Just days before she died, Presley was at Graceland, taking part in a big celebration for what would have been her famous father's 80th birthday. I think that he would be proud. I think the movie was incredible. Just two days later, she attended the Golden Globes celebrating the movie Elvis. Following her sudden passing Lisa Marie was buried at her childhood home, Graceland, alongside her son Benjamin and her legendary father who died in 1977. Bariatric weight loss surgery. It seems like Lisa Marie did not see it coming take a listen our cut to bariatric surgery refers to gastric bypass and other weight loss surgeries

the medical examiner noting that Presley did not seek medical attention despite experiencing abdominal pain for several months the autopsy also revealing that Presley who had long been open about her struggles with addiction and mental health had therapeutic levels of the pain reliever oxycodone in her blood but revealing that Presley, who had long been open about her struggles with addiction and mental health, had therapeutic levels of the pain reliever oxycodone in her blood. But the report says that that did not contribute to her death. When you are hurting so badly, you have to take oxycodone. As a result of bariatric surgery, with me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now. Again, I'm Nancy Grayson. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us. Another woman dead after a botched surgery,

and I'm referring specifically to a young mom, Kiki McIntyre, and another young mom, Justine Rodriguez. One is 33, one is 34 at the time of their death. Again, with me, an all-star panel. But first, I want to go to Dr. Stephanie Porras, plastic surgeon out of Orlando at porrasplasticsurgery.com. I'd like to also point out, she would never tell you this herself, she has the only female-owned and operated plastic surgery practice in Orlando. Dr. Porras, thank you for being with us. Could you explain and regular people talk, not medical doctor talk. What is bariatric surgery?

What is that? So bariatric surgery, it's become a lot more popularized within the last 10 to 20 years as the techniques of doing it have changed and become safer. Basically, it's a procedure to reduce the size of the stomach or bypass it altogether in order to obtain weight loss. So there's different modalities that we use in surgery to do this. And depending on the modality you have will depend on the surgery that is done. Wait, what is modality? So depending on the modality you have will depend on the surgery that is done. Wait, what is modality? So depending on the type of surgery, so if it's a stomach shrinking procedure or stomach bypassing procedure,

each of these procedures that you can have done can lead to different outcomes and different amounts of weight loss and different forms of complications. And so we're seeing all kinds of different complications. But a lot of these procedures are done very safely. Within the last 10 years, we've really improved the way we do bariatric surgery. Okay, could you again, dumb me down, what exactly do you do when you perform bariatric weight loss surgery? So if you're doing a stomach shrinking operation, you're actually cutting part of the stomach to reduce the size of the stomach altogether. So to decrease the amount of food that can fit into the stomach, thereby decreasing the amount of caloric intake that you can consume, which will end up causing weight loss. So that's one type of procedure that can

be done. Another type of procedure is bypassing the stomach altogether. And so this actually creates an even smaller potential for caloric intake and decreased hunger, thereby also reducing the amount of calories that you can take in and giving you more weight loss. When you say you bypass the stomach altogether, what does that mean? How do you do that? So you can actually essentially feed right from the esophagus into the small intestine. But how do you do that? You eat, it goes in your mouth, it goes down your throat and into your esophagus and then into your stomach. But instead of going to your stomach, you reroute it like the perimeter around a big city. You reroute it with what? What do you put in the stump?

What do you put inside the person's body to take the food from the esophagus straight to the intestine? It never goes in the stomach. I mean, how do you live? How do you have nutrition? Well, listen, I, you know, I definitely, I mean, you're highlighting one of the serious, the serious complexities of this surgery. This is not a small surgery. I mean, these are very big, complex operations. And when done by expert bariatric surgeons can be performed very well. And that's why it's so important to go to somebody who is extremely skilled and does multiple of these a year

and not go to somebody who claims they're a bariatric surgeon and really is not. You really need to seek out expert medical, expert surgeons. Dr. Porras, how do you get the food from the esophagus to the intestines to basically go straight to the poop process? Through a series of intra-abdominal staples. So we actually use staples inside the abdomen. You can actually block off and reconnect different parts of the aerodigestive tract. And so when we do that, we can actually reroute, like you said,

exactly where the food's going. Okay, I'm thinking this through. And I'm wondering why in the world for such an extensive surgery, this sounds very extensive. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. So there's two, from my understanding, two types of bariatric weight loss surgery. One is where part of the stomach is cut away and the stomach is actually smaller. So therefore you eat a little bit and you're totally full. You don't want to eat anymore. And the other that Dr. Porce described is a rerouting from the esophagus, bypassing the stomach of food, and it goes straight down to the intestines, basically. So you poop it out before it ever gets to your stomach.

Wow. Okay. That's a really good explanation. But it's a very complicated surgery, both of them. Why somebody would want to go to another country for that, I'm not sure. But I want to go first to our cut 15, this young mom, Kiki McIntyre. Take a listen to our friends at Crime Online. 34-year-old Markita McIntyre, her friends call her Kiki. She's always had an issue with her weight, and after three children, it's even

tougher. Having heard about weight loss surgery, Kiki found out the sleeve surgery is the most common bariatric surgery and it costs around $18,000 in the U.S. However, taking a trip to Tijuana, Mexico, and a doctor will do the same bariatric surgery for about $4,000. She had a friend that was going to do the trip with her, but the friend backed out. Kiki went without her. Her friends in Biloxi still don't really know what happened, but mother of three, Marquita Kiki McIntyre, had a complication while undergoing gastric sleeve surgery in Mexico, and she died.

You know, I'm looking at her right now. She is beautiful. She has got the biggest smile. This Mississippi native and mother of three, Marquita Kiki McIntyre, goes to Tijuana to have gastric sleeve, never made it home. And in the picture I'm looking at, this has got to be her daughter because they look so much alike. It's just hugging her, their faces close together. She was a pretty popular makeup artist and did a lot of research before she decided to go out of the country for sleeve surgery. Now, let me go back to our expert, Dr. Stephanie Porras. Gastric sleeve can actually be, can't that be endoscopic? Yeah, actually, most of these gastric bypass

procedures are done laparoscopically using a small instrument and a camera. We're able to keep the incisions very small, but that does not change the complexity of the operation. It changes the entrance and exit, meaning you don't have a giant incision on your abdomen. But the complexity of the surgery is still very much the same. Guys, we're talking about not one, but two women. One is Kiki McIntyre-Marquita, and the other is Justine Rodriguez. Take a listen to our cut for our friends at ABC4. Her family had to find out from her doctor she might not make it. I remember her telling my dad, Mr. Rodriguez, did you hear that? And my mom and dad just got really silent. And he said, you know, his voice cracked.

And he said, yes, ma'am, I hear you. One woman dead on a Tijuana operating table. Another still dealing with epilepsy as a result. Take a listen to our cut six, our friends at ABC4. Insurance companies view bariatric surgery as cosmetic instead of what doctors believe is a medical one. Dr. Eibel says patients get desperate, but a botched surgery can end up costing hundreds of thousands of dollars

in medical bills to fix the problem. Justine says she's racked up nearly a million dollars in medical bills. Guys, that's not all. This is what actually happened to Justine Rodriguez. Take a listen to Srey Chin in our cut five. Long after the patient has gone home from Tijuana, they might wind up sick in an emergency room with flu-like symptoms, get diagnosed with a flu or pneumonia, and really they have a huge abscess in their abdomen from food spilling

through their stomach. That's exactly what happened to Justine. Dr. Anna Eibel is a bariatric surgeon at the University of Utah. She says weight loss surgery can cost $10,000 to $20,000 in the U.S. It's a third of that in Mexico. $5,000 and that included my airfare. Straight out to Alexis Terescha, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. In the last 72 hours, I've learned of another young mom in her 30s, Leanne Leary, who suffered two heart attacks and died after gastric sleeve surgery in Istanbul in Turkey. That has just happened. What, if anything, do you know about Leanne? So Leanne is a mom.

She was 38 years old and she went to, she lived in England and traveled all the way to Istanbul, Turkey to have gastric bypass surgery because she had heard about this from other people. And her friends even said she was so excited about the surgery. She sent her friends a picture from the hospital. She's in a hospital gown. And then nobody heard from her. So they started calling the hospital. They said, where is she?

Where is she? They said, oh, she had a heart attack, but she's stable. Don't worry about it. But she, they're saying, then the doctors there said, where is she? Where is she? They said, oh, she had a heart attack, but she's stable. Don't worry about it. But she, they're saying, then the doctors there said, well, she didn't provide a next of kin, so we didn't have anybody to reach out. So her parents flew to Turkey. When they got there, they were told, oh, she did have a heart attack, but she actually died after a heart attack. I'm just thinking through everything that has happened to these and many more women. I want to go straight out to not only a high profile lawyer, but long term friend and colleague, high profile lawyer, Michael Griffith, international criminal defense attorney from New York. You can find him at michaelgriffithlawyer.com, former senior officer

of the Criminal Law Committee for the International Bar. Michael, thank you for being with us. You know, Michael, for so what you devoted much of your practice to international law. At the beginning, I guess there was a lot of drug tourism, and you were flying all around the world, getting people out of jail, defending cases, and I guess on every continent. That was often linked to drugs, but now plastic surgery, international tourism. You know, Nancy, what's happening with these people going overseas is reminiscent of the story. Remember Jack Benny, the famous comedian who was known as a cheapskate and a miser. He was accosted by a robber one day and the robber said, your money or your life. And it was a long pause. The robber says, maybe you didn't hear me.

Your money or your life? And Jack Benny said, don't rush me. I'm thinking. Well, with respect to these people who go overseas, to an extent that they may be exchanging their money for their life, to get a lower discount to do something like a bariatric surgery, I think is silly and it's stupid. You know, if you go to Mexico.

Well, wait a minute. Hold on, brainiac. Not everybody has graduated college and gone on to law school and traveled all the all around the world and speaks all your languages. You do. A lot of people don't understand how dangerous this can be. I mean, in the U.S., when I was with the Federal Trade Commission and their antitrust department and consumer protection, I remember we had an antitrust

action against a really big hospital. It was about OBGYNs trying to cut off the market for certified nurse midwives and not allowing them to practice in their hospital. only functioning here with vaginal normal deliveries with an OBGYN in the room with them. All right, an OBGYN that have privileges at the hospital that would be there for the delivery in case there was some unanticipated complication. Anyway, they tried to keep the nurse midwives out. Long story short, Michael Griffith, I learned a lot about standard of care in hospitals. We have a by law standard of care in the U.S. in medical facilities, whether they screw it up or not. That's a whole nother thing. But in these other countries, Michael Griffith, there is no standard of care. Some of these patients lay on a table for eight hours while they die. Nancy, not only do I agree with that, but in these countries, they don't use what is considered in the States to be medically accepted procedures. You know, many of the doctors go to these Mexican, what do you call it,

medical schools, which are up to the standards. As you know, we have American students who can't get into U.S. medical schools, and they go to the Caribbean and Mexico. It's a real crapshoot to do an operation there. And particularly, you know, Medicaid doesn't cover this. Medicare doesn't cover it. Your insurance companies may not cover it. As a matter of fact, Nancy, you'll remember this. Some of our friends died from this.

Our mutual friend Dominic Dunn, Dominic went to Germany to get a procedure to the same medical facility that the Farrah Fawcett went, and they both died. Steve McQueen died because of the care he got in Mexico. Recently, I went to a funeral of a woman that I knew, 49, 59 years old, who went to get one of these homopathic medical procedures in Mexico and died. So it's a real crapshoot, and people must be very, very careful not to go to these countries if they can possibly avoid it. You know, I learned all about quality of care, Dr. Stephanie Porras. And Dr. Bethany and Irv Brandt, please jump in. Dr. Porras, the basic minimum standard of care would certainly not be to allow your patient to be unattended for eight hours. And that reminds of how Michael Jackson died. You know, he had Conrad Murray administering basically a tranquilizer, propofol, that is used in surgery and just left him in there while he went and called his girlfriend and

Jackson died. Yeah, I think it was a child molester. He's also one of the greatest talents that ever lived, left alone for hours while Conrad's in and out, in and out, and he dies. That's an example that's not supposed out, in and out, and he dies. That's an example that's not supposed to happen in the U.S. There's not even such a standard like that to try and attain in these other countries, doctor. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And that's what's so absolutely scary about medical tourism is you just don't know what your standards are

in the other countries. At least in America, we can say to be board certified, to be board eligible, you have to go through umpteen years of training. I mean, I've done 15 years of training, you know, and so it takes a long time. And we do, we have ethical standards within our societies. We have absolute standards of care within the hospital system that we must adhere to. And we're under review every single year. Every single year we review, we recertify. And so to go to other countries where even a fraction of that probably doesn't exist is very scary as a patient. And I'll tell you as a mom, oh my God, just for me to undergo

a simple, you know, wisdom tooth extraction under sedation in America, I'm scared. So I can't even imagine as a mom going to another country to have these large procedures and then at the end of the day

to not come back. I mean, it's devastating. It's devastating. Even Nancy, if I could jump in about this. I was just coming to you. With me, Dr. Bethany Marshall, renowned psychoanalyst joining us out of Beverly Hills. You can find her at drbethanymarshall.com. No offense to all the beautiful people in Beverly Hills, but one of the reasons they're all beautiful is because they have tons and tons of plastic surgery.

When I was out there for Dancing with the Stars, I think I was the shortest and roundest person there and roundest of course is a euphemism I walked I'm like who are all these people then I started noticing a lot of them looked alike they must have had the same surgeon but I bet you have a lot of issues I know you're not going to comment with your clients okay plastic surgery fine have it I just be mad if you didn't. But this is extreme, Dr. Bethany, to go to another country. Why are they so desperate to go? And it seems to be sugarcoated, you know, this plastic surgery tourism business.

Well, I think that there's almost like a gambling mentality. You know, I'm going to get something for nothing or for very little. And because of that, I'm not going to pay attention to the facts, whether or not this person is board certified, whether or not there are medical standards. There's almost this magical belief that everything will turn out okay. And they invest authority in doctors, as if because you're wearing, it's like the white coat phenomena, just know because you have a white coat, you must know what you're doing. And I tell my patients, you know, there's no such thing as a free lunch. There really isn't. You're going to pay one way or another. So if it's a $15,000 surgery here, and you're going to pay $5,000 there,

you're going to pay. I don't know how you're going to pay, but you're going to pay. You may pay with your life. You may pay with the fact that you have a botched surgery. You may pay in another way. And that is that there's no medical malpractice in most of these countries, like Mexico. Here in the States, there's recourse. You have a surgery, you find out that your doctor did not adhere to standards of practice for the field. They have boards that certify them and you can get an attorney and you can sue them for medical malpractice. You can get at least some damages. But I mean, think about it, Dr. Bethany. Sure, your family can sue after you're dead. Right. I'd rather save the people from doing this. You know what I did with

my mother? Don't tell her. I hid her passport. I actually physically hid her passport. I told no one, not my husband, not my children, nobody. I hid it. And it came back to bite me in the neck because this was during COVID. And it was at the tail end of COVID, I think. And I needed the passport to take her with us on a Disney cruise, which I love, by the way. And we didn't have the passport because I'd hidden it. All right. So we had to go through this extensive oh oh when you tell what a lie I told and it's so true about lies they get bigger and bigger and you have to do more and more to cover it up I had to go through so much to get her on that Disney Cruise I

had to get an original certified birth certificate from Bibb County where she was born. She was born not in a hospital, I might add, which complicated everything. And I had, I just had to go through so much because of my lie. All right. Oh, what a tangled web. We, we, boy, I thought about that when I was standing in line down in Bibb County trying to get a birth certificate because I didn't want her to go to Mexico to get the dental implants. By the way, we did get on the Disney cruise. I had to go through so many hoops and so much proof that this little lady in the wheelchair was, you know, actually Elizabeth Grace. But she didn't go to Mexico and she got the implants.

And guess what? She has the most beautiful set of teeth. But it did cost her an arm and a leg. Hey, guys, I'm just being joined by Irv Brandt, Senior Inspector, U.S. Marshal Service, International Investigations Branch, Chief Inspector, DOJ, Office of International Affairs, author of Solo Shot, Curse of the Blue Stone. Oh, that's a good one on Amazon and Flying Solo, Top of the World. Haven't gotten to it, but I'm getting there, Irv Brandt. Irv, people may wonder why I want a worldwide bounty hunter essentially with me right now, because you've been in every one of these cities. Can you explain what Michael Griffith and I are talking about? Yes, I can, Nancy. And I'm glad you're doing this, bringing light to this, because people don't understand how

dangerous going south of the border can be. They think like they would here in the U.S., traveling between cities. I'm going to go and I'm going to do this and I'm going to have this procedure done and I'm going to take money with me. When you go south of the border, whether it's Mexico or Central America, and this is very common, the medical procedures for dental or plastic surgery, things like that. My brother with the State Department was in Costa Rica, and I would go to Costa Rica all the time to go to his house. And we would talk about it, our flights back and forth to the US, about half the flights were passengers, or people coming to Costa Rica for medical procedures. And these people are bringing a lot of money with them, you know, to pay for these procedures. And they're being targeted for violent crimes.

And it's a lack of awareness. I'll give you an example. A country like Honduras, I recently read a report, is the most dangerous place on earth for a woman. A woman is killed in Honduras every 36 hours, is targeted and murdered every 36 hours. But people are unaware of this. They treat international travel like they would treat interstate travel in this country. And I'm with you. I'm going to hide their passports if I have the chance. And listen, don't get me wrong. It's just what Dr. Bethany Marshall was earlier saying, that people think they're getting, oh, what a good deal. I can't pass it up. I said, mother, please stay in the U.S. I will pay for it. I will put it on my American Express card,

pay it off every month. Oh, no, that wouldn't do. She had to try and save the money. I mean, Dr. Bethany Marshall, when we were growing up, no, no cookies in the house, no snacks, no nothing. I mean, we could have any money. But my point is, she's a saver. That's the way she is. And she thought she was going to save money by going to Mexico. I seriously did backflips trying to keep her from going. I offered to pay whatever it was here so she wouldn't go. And ultimately, I had to tell a lie, which I always get caught, Dr. Bethany, always. And, you know, then, as I said, the whole Disney thing and oh, but it's that whole saving money thing, getting a deal. There's another aspect of this. It's also of controlling the procedure. And what I mean by

that, I have a good friend who's a clothing designer. He wanted me to go to Tijuana with him where he was going to get some inexpensive dental work. He wanted veneers. So you put those over your teeth so that they look, you know, whiter, more uniform. But he's a very controlling guy. He thinks he always knows the best about aesthetics. So he goes, I accompanied him. He goes to this clinic. Tourists were coming straight from the bus, straight from the airplane. There were all these people in the waiting room with suitcases. And they would say, oh, I'm from Illinois. I'm from Missouri. I'm from here. So these tourists were going straight to this clinic.

So my friend gets the whole work done, and he comes out, and his teeth look like chicklets. And I asked him, like, what the heck happened? And he controlled the procedure. He said, well, I wanted this, you know, the front to look like this and the side to look like this. And so he dictated how the teeth were going to look and they looked, you know, deformed afterwards. So I think it's saving money. It's controlling the procedure,

thinking you know more than the doctor. You know, there's all kinds of strange motivations, I think, that go into going south of the border. crime stories with nancy grace i think i heard michael griffith jumping in jump in friend on that point um americans have to realize that if there's any medical malpractice or negligence in a foreign country, the lawyers there do not work on contingencies like they do in the United States. You have to pay the lawyers there

hour for hour, and if you get a judgment, if you get a judgment in that foreign country, you have to go under either the Hague Convention or the bilateral judgment process where you have to try to attach property or assets in that foreign country, which is very, very difficult. Dear Lord in heaven, Michael Griffith is now quoting the Hague Convention as a basis to get paid back from botched surgery. You know, you're in trouble when the opposing side starts quoting the Hague

Convention. I don't even want to get into what the Hague Convention is. I've had to deal with it a couple of times. I never want to judge it with a 10 foot pole. I wanted to echo a statement here. So, you know, you talked about shopping around. Thisfoot pole. I wanted to echo a statement here. So, you know, you talked about shopping around. This is Dr. Porras. Go ahead, doctor. You know, we were talking about the patient that thinks they know best and shopping around. And, you know, we see that a lot, a lot, you know, especially in cosmetic surgery. Patients shop around all the time looking for the best price.

I mean, so we see that in the United States. But the other issue that I think a lot of the medical people that are doing this medical tourism is they've probably been told no by a lot of plastic surgeons, whether it be for not being a good candidate for surgery, meaning they have significant and they're not fit for a cosmetic operation. You know, it's one thing when you got to get your appendix out. It's an emergency. It's another when you want to facelift. You know, we want all of the T's to be crossed, the I's to be dotted. And I think a lot of these people may have heard no and said, well, listen, I bet I can go to Mexico and get this done. Again, substandard care, The standards of care are just different.

And so I think that a lot of these patients that may even be dying overseas may have not been good surgical candidates to begin with. That's a really good point, Dr. Porras. It's as if you read my mind because my mom was told no by many oral surgeons and dentists because of her age. She's in pretty good health. But she, let's see, she's 91, about to turn 92 right now. So she would have been 90 or 89 at the time this whole implant thing came up. And doctors are like, no, no, no, no, no. And she goes, hey, I'm going to Mexico.

Oh, no, I'll never see her again guys this is by far these two ladies kiki mcintyre justine rodriguez by far not the first ladies to die in plastic surgery international tourism take a listen our cut 16 nbc despite delhi's beauty the 46 year old realtor wanted a change so she traveled april 20th to Colombia to undergo gastric bypass surgery at the hands of Dr. Carlos Sales Puccini, who had performed the same surgery on her in 2015. Delia's mother and aunt went with her. She left the consultation reassured by the doctor that she would be fine in three days. Her aunt says medical records show Delia was admitted to the Reina Catalina Clinic in Barranquilla on April 21st. She went into the OR at 3 p.m. in good condition, got a gastric sleeve, and was released the same day. She was released the same day and started experiencing pain. The doctors there said, hey, go get an x-ray. Well, let me tell you how that turned out. Take a listen to our cut, 18 NBC. They say three hours later, Dr. Silas Puccine got to the apartment and saw her in such bad condition.

He said he was heading to the clinic to prepare the OR. He didn't call an ambulance. He left. Meet me at the hospital. A family friend says he began driving her to the clinic. The doctor ordered, but the lie was fading quickly. So he took her to a nearby hospital where she was pronounced dead and there is laura avila take a listen our cut eight abc eight laura avila is a dancer a singer a real estate agent in dallas she's the life she's the light you know but this is not how laura is today on october 30th laura went to juarez mexico with her fiance for plastic surgery on her nose. They traveled to Mexico because the procedure was cheaper.

The price, of course, you know, comparing those prices to the ones in the U.S., I mean, it was less than one-third of it. They went to a plastic surgery center around noon that day. Her fiancé, Enrique Cruz, says an employee administered anesthesia, but something went terribly wrong. Guys, U.S. women, mostly women, are dying because of international plastic surgery tourism. Irv Brandt, what is your message? Stay in the United States. When you travel out of the country, if you are going to travel out of the country and go against my advice, do your research. Check on this clinic. You know, check these doctors.

Check their experience. This is literally playing Russian roulette with a handgun. And even researching, Irv, I don't think you can research every conceivable circumstance, every conceivable outcome. But you're saying research. I say don't go. Michael Griffith, what's your message? My message is if you go overseas and have a problem, call Michael Griffith. He'll do the best he can to help you.

You and the American Express $32 a month thing. Okay. Why did I let him back in? I said, cut his mic. Then I brought him back in. Michael Griffith is actually a renowned international criminal defense attorney that I'm torturing. Dr. Bethany, what is your message? My message is you're going to pay one way or the other.

You're going to pay. It's not really cheap for you. It's not just that people go down, not just for a cheaper surgery, but for a vacation. They're going to pay it's not really cheap for you it's not just that and people go down not just for a cheaper surgery but for a vacation they're going to combine it with something else so like oh i can stay at a resort instead of like a thousand dollars a night as like it is at the four seasons here i'll get a great resort there for three hundred dollars a night or two hundred dollars a night but in the end if the procedure doesn't look how you want it to if you have health complications if you come back to the states and then the surgeon is not there to follow

you or you have to seek additional treatments here to correct what was done there you didn't really save money and you didn't have that great vacation afterwards, after all, so it's not really worth it. Dr. Stephanie Porras, joining us, plastic surgeon in Orlando at porrasplasticsurgery.com. What is your message? Yeah, I would tread very lightly when considering any overseas surgery, not just plastic surgery, but any surgical intervention that you are looking for, do some research, look on the National Institute of Health in that country, find out how the certification process works for that specific surgeon, and ask for their certifications, have them email them to you, do your research, do your homework. And if you're going to go, just be prepared because if a complication does occur, it is going to be costly in the United States to fix it.

And a lot of surgeons will not fix it if you've gone out of the country. So just be aware and know what's going to potentially happen. Alexis Tereschik joined me, who was just the greatest comedian ever. And off camera, whenever I would see her, she would always ask me about the twins. She always knew their names, their ages as each year passed, knew what they were up to. And now she's gone. I remember watching her tell you one time, Nancy, you asked her how she kept her family together. And she said, eat dinner together every night.

I remember watching that you had aired that one time. When I think that she went in for a very simple laryngoscopy and died, I mean, if an icon like Joan Rivers can pass away in a simple procedure, what's gonna happen in another country where these regular moms, like you and me, go to get a cosmetic procedure? I just, I hate to hear about it because it's so easily avoidable.

There's nothing that can happen. You know, with Joan Rivers, her daughter, Melissa, filed a lawsuit and they got a settlement against the doctor's office. But if you're, these places out of the country, there's really no recourse. There's nothing you can do to sue them to make sure that they stop, that they don't do this to anyone else. It's nearly impossible for that to happen out of the country.

And you're right, Melissa did get a settlement, but nothing could replace your mom. Nothing. I fear that we will be covering this again. If you have information on an ongoing international plastic surgery tourism crime, please call 800-225-5324. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.