Police arrested Brazilian, celebrity plastic surgeon known as Dr. Bumbum after a patient died following her butt enhancement surgery. After five days on the run from authorities, he was arrested in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday. Dr. Bumbum’s real name is Denis Furtado, and he has an immense social media following in Brazil.
Furtado was performing the enhancement procedure at his Rio de Janeiro home on Saturday when the patient fell ill. He rushed her to a nearby hospital, where she died hours later. A judge issued a warrant for his arrest, after he had disappeared for days. The patient has since been identified as Lilian Calixto, and police say the exact cause of death has yet to be determined, BBC reports.
Local media reports and The Independent say Calixto arrived at the hospital “with tachycardia, an abnormally fast heart rate, after having silicone injected into each buttock. The procedure is also believed to involve the injection of acrylic glass filler.”
Celebrity Plastic Surgeon Known As Dr. BumBum On The Run After Patient Dies ?? https://t.co/7nzTOjRqTd pic.twitter.com/uDbzxWFO2h
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According to The Guardian, Furtado posted about using a chemical known as PMMA in his butt enhancement procedure. The Brazilian Plastic Surgery Society has cautioned against the chemical though. The publication also reports that Furtado was also not licensed to practice in Rio, where the procedure happened. The Brazilian Plastic Surgery Society told The Guardian though that he was not a trained plastic surgeon.
Furtado told reporters that he was innocent of any wrongdoing, and that “there was an occurrence with the patient.” The Independent notes that he posted a video on Instagram following his arrest on Thursday, where he said the woman’s death was an accident and that he’d done 9,000 procedures that were all legal.
The president of the Regional Medical Council of the state of Rio de Janeiro Niveo Steffen spoke to the BBC about the increase of “non-specialists”, “You cannot perform plastic surgery inside an apartment. Many people are selling a dream, a fantasy to patients in an unethical way and people, weakened, are often attracted to low prices without considering whether or not the conditions are adequate.”