A settlement has been reached in a lawsuit following the death of a Brazilian butt lift patient at New Life Plastic Surgery, 8400 SW Eighth St., in West Miami-Dade.
dneal@miamiherald.com
A Maryland wife and mother’s death following procedures at a Miami area surgery center triggered a wrongful death lawsuit that will end in a settlement that gives $164,574 to the woman’s surviving spouse and $29,042 to her 6-year-old child.
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The settlement is on the online docket for the Miami-Dade civil court case against New Life Plastic Surgery and Dr. Naveed Nosrati filed by Andrew Green, husband of Melecia Green. Melecia collapsed and died from a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot, less than 40 hours after an abdominoplasty, a tummy tuck, and liposuction in December 2022 at New Life.
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She was 33 years old.
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The amount received by Melecia Green’s husband and daughter is the total settlement of $325,000 minus attorneys fees and costs. Of that $325,000, state records say $250,000 was paid by Nosrati’s insurer, National Fire & Marine Insurance.
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Under “Misdiagnosis Made, If Any, Of Patient’s Actual Condition,” the online Florida Office of Insurance Regulation record states “Failure to perform surgery properly, failure to anticoagulate patient at risk for (pulmonary embolism).”
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Translation: Nosarti didn’t take proper action to prevent the clotting of blood.
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READ MORE: New Life surgeon’s mistake hospitalized a BBL patient, 3rd state complaint says
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New Life and the end of a mother’s life
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That record says Green went to Nosrati at New Life, 8400 SW Eighth St., to deal with “excessive abdominal skin” and love handles. Then came the tummy tuck and the liposuction of the love handles.
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Nosrati has been American Board of Plastic Surgery certified since Nov. 15, 2020, with a subspecialty certification in hand surgery since Aug. 3, 2021. He has been licensed in California since April 4, 2018, and Florida since June 3, 2021.
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The lawsuit filed by Chris Russomanno of Miami’s Russomanno & Borrello said New Life “popped” Green with over 20 pages of “outdated” consent forms from 2009 the day before her surgery, when the cash cost was non-refundable. Also, the lawsuit said, New Life didn’t inform Green about the dangers of pulmonary embolisms, a common cause of death among cosmetic surgery fatalities.
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“This is a common strategic maneuver, as if the Defendants were transparent and up front about the real known risk of death and how it occurs annually in South Florida, they would lose out on huge revenues,” the lawsuit said.
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In its answer filed by Christos Lagos of Miami’s Lagos & Priovolos, New Life acknowledged giving Green the consent forms, but denied all the other accusations of improper behavior.
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After the one-hour, 15-minute surgeries on Dec. 14, 2022, the lawsuit said, New Life discharged Green. She returned to her hotel, then came back to New Life on Dec. 15 for a follow-up.
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“At no time during this important post-operative follow-up did Nosrati or any medical doctor lay an eye on her,” the lawsuit said. “No post-operative pictures were secured, and we have no idea what her vitals were. The post-operative note is bare bones and also fails to have any sense of credibility regarding who created it, when it was created or who the was the actual non-doctor that performed this shower and shave post operative evaluation.”
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Green returned to her hotel again. She collapsed at the hotel on Dec. 17, 2022, and was pronounced dead at Kendall Regional Hospital.
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The lawsuit called Nosrati’s operative note “suspicious” in the lack of electronic time stamp or being created in an electronic database that allows a tracking of updates. Court documents include a deposition of Nosrati during which he says he doesn’t save the operative reports, part of what Russomanno called in a court filing “a very bizarre record keeping story.”
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Russomanno wrote, “(Nosarti) utilizes a template that is saved to his laptop and/or on a thumb drive, and opens the template on his laptop or a New Life desktop; creates the operative report; does not save it, for reasons unknown; and then prints out the completed operative report so New Life can scan that report into their electronic computer system.”
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