NYC woman sues plastic surgeon for implants resulting in four breasts

While the result was unintended and certainly not comical for this poor woman, it’s difficult not to picture a boob-crazed surgeon responding like, “you didn’t want four breasts? Should I not have done that?”

47-year-old Maria Alaimo of Staten Island is suing her surgeon, Dr. Keith Berman, for complications including “painful ‘double bubble’ deformities” following a breast augmentation. For an alarmingly low $2,999 plus a $500 “referral fee” in 2003 (less than half of the region’s market rate for breast implant surgery) Alaimo received the procedure she claims has ruined her life:

“(Her breasts) appear flattened on the bottom with severe swells the size of a softball on top.” In court documents, Alaimo claims those disfigurements caused “pain … disability, loss of self-esteem, humiliation and embarrassment.”

Alaimo also claims that the allegedly botched surgery ultimately lead to her divorce, citing intimacy issues following the procedure. Alaimo is suing for $5 million, but an attorney for the doctor says that “there are no guarantees” in plastic surgery:

The doctor’s attorney, Jerry Giardina, said Alaimo should have been more aware of the risks of plastic surgery before she went under the knife. “Plastic surgery is trivialized, but the reality is that plastic surgery is just that—surgery. There are no guarantees. What one person responds to, another does not.”

[Gothamist via Consumerist]