Plastic surgeon ‘operating on his wife left her seizing on table for 20 minutes’
A plastic surgeon who was performing a procedure on his wife allegedly left her seizing on an operating table for 20 minutes, leading to her death.
Dr Benjamin Jacob Brown, 41, has been arrested more than six months after his wife, Hillary Ellington Brown, 33, went into cardiac arrest and he refused to call 911, according to the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies responded to a report of a medical emergency at Restore Plastic Surgery in Gulf Breeze, Florida, on November 21, and found Hillary had a cardiac arreste and rushed her to a local hospital.
Hillary was placed on life support and died a week later.
She was set to undergo ‘miniature muscle plication/abdominal scar revision, bilateral arm liposuction, lip injections, and ear adjustment procedures’, according to a health department document obtained by Law & Crime.
Benjamin let his wife, with no medical training, prepare her own anesthesia suture her own skin and her feet starting twitching, which got worse during liposuction on her arm.
Hillary ‘stated that her vision started to blur, and she told Dr Brown that she saw “orange,”’ according to the document, but ‘Dr Brown continued injecting lidocaine/Xylocaine in (Hillary Brown’s) face’.
When Hillary became unresponsive and began having a seizure, ‘a medical assistant asked Dr Brown if they should call 911 and Dr. Brown said “no,”‘ states the document.
‘Over the next 10-20 minutes, a medical assistant asked Dr Brown if they should call 911 and Dr Brown said “no,” or “wait.”‘
The doctor allegedly ‘shouted’ at staff, asking ‘what medication did she take, what did she take’, according to the document.
It was not until about 10 to 20 minutes after Hillary’s seizure that her husband told an assistant to call 911.
The sheriff’s office conducted an ‘extensive investigation’ with the District One Medical Examiner’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office and obtained a warrant for Benjamin’s arrest.
Benjamin was taken into custody on Monday and charged with second degree felony homicide, manslaughter by culpable negligence.
He is being held at the sheriff’s office jail ahead of his first court appearance, when a judge will determine his bond amount.
The sheriff’s office and medical examiner are leading an investigation into Hillary’s death. Her cause and manner of death are still pending due to autopsy protocol.
‘In accordance with our policies and procedures, SRSO investigators frequently conduct death investigations when the death was unexpected or the death occurs under unusual circumstances,’ stated the sheriff’s office on Facebook.
Autopsy protocol can take a few months and follows extensive laboratory and toxicology tests.
Hillary’s father, Marty Ellington, blamed her death on ‘one careless individual’.
‘His ego and arrogance overshadowed the need for help, prolonging oxygen deprivation to her brain and ultimately causing her death,’ Ellington told the Pensacola News Journal.
‘Ben Brown took the mother from my grandchildren, my only daughter and our brightest star.’
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