“I was told I’d look amazing…instead I risked my life,” patient Alicia Armijo says of her alleged botched tummy tuck
Courtesy of Alicia Armijo; Courtesy of Wendy Ellsworth
Alicia Armijo and Wendy Ellsworth
Warning: This story contains graphic images.
Two Arizona women who went to a prominent plastic surgeon to fix issues with sagging skin say they are now living in disfigured bodies after their doctor operated on them while drunk, according to a complaint.
Wendy Ellsworth, 51, and Alicia Armijo, 32, filed lawsuits against Dr. Bradley Becker of Glendale, Ariz., over the botched procedures, claiming, per their complaint, that he smelled strongly of booze on the mornings of their operations.
Ellsworth filed a lawsuit against Dr. Becker in Maricopa County Superior Court on Sept. 30, accusing him of medical negligence, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress that led to “significant anxiety.”
Armijo filed her own lawsuit against the doctor on Oct. 2 claiming negligence, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
“Due to the pending lawsuits, we will not be commenting on the specific allegations against Dr. Becker,” Becker’s attorney Richard Kent told PEOPLE. “We can definitively state that under no circumstances has Dr. Becker been under the influence of alcohol or any other substance that could cause impairment while providing any aspect of patient care, and he is committed to providing quality care to his patients.”
Ellsworth tells PEOPLE she was taken into the operating room for a tummy tuck and breast lift on Oct. 5, 2021. Per the complaint, she claims Becker “reeked of alcohol and appeared to be intoxicated.” She also alleges he appeared to have “an altered state of mind” compared to their previous encounters, which she says left her both “confused” and “frightened.”
Ellsworth says she’d been looking forward to getting rid of the excess skin around her belly before the experience.
“I’ve had nine kids, and I’d recently lost 120 pounds,” Ellsworth says. “I’d get belly button infections and rashes under my breasts, but it wasn’t quite bad enough that insurance would pay for the procedures.”
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She and her husband saved the $16K it would cost for a tummy tuck and breast lift, and she says she was so excited about what Dr. Becker promised he could do for her.
“He’d come so highly recommended in Facebook groups. I even checked the medical board and didn’t see any complaints,” she says of doing her research. “He told me, ‘I can pull you so tight.’ “
She says her excitement turned to apprehension the morning of the procedure.
“He came in and didn’t mark me up,” she says, referring to the markings that plastic surgeons make on patients’ bodies to be more precise when performing procedures. When she asked him why he was not doing so, she says he hurriedly ran a marker down her belly and across her hips.
Per her complaint, while the smell of alcohol left her concerned, Ellsworth says she “felt trapped that she was already prepped for surgery and didn’t know what to do.”
“I knew I wouldn’t get my money back,” she says, of why she chose to continue with the procedure.
What happened after was a nightmare, she says; instead of removing the excess skin, she claims Dr. Becker left her “disfigured,” per the complaint.
“He basically left me with two shelves of skin on my hips to wear, so that even when I wear jeans, you can see where he’d cut — it looks like a clear shelf,” she tells PEOPLE. “I have scars going up the middle of my stomach and from hip to hip, and he left tons of stitches hanging out of my body.”
Courtesy of Wendy Ellsworth
Wendy Ellsworth shares before and after images of her stomach
“When I unwrapped my body on the fourth day I just cried. He’d lowered my bellybutton by three inches, and it was this puckered, horribly sutured ugly scar … I was horrified to see it, with chunks of skin draping off my body.”
She claims her breast lift was equally bad, according to the complaint.
“My nipples weren’t even close to being even,” she says. “There is a reasonable expectation when you pay for a procedure like this that you’ll get what you paid for.”
Courtesy of Wendy Ellsworth
Wendy Ellsworth shows results of what she says was a botched breast lift.
Ellsworth says she complained to Dr. Becker about the results, but claims he was dismissive, per the complaint. “He told me everyone has skin sitting on their laps, or that it was just swelling and it could take up to two years to go away,” she tells PEOPLE.
After Ellsworth posted about her experience on Facebook, Armijo, another patient of Dr. Becker’s, saw the comment. When she read it, she couldn’t believe it: she says her own experience was exactly like Ellsworth’s.
In her complaint, obtained by PEOPLE, Armijo claims Becker “was not acting at all like he had in their initial consultation.” Once she was taken back for the surgery, Armijo claims she began crying “because she was afraid” that Dr. Becker “was not in any state of mind to be able to perform the surgery,” per the complaint.
“I’d actually called the office for a refund two weeks before my procedure because another woman warned me about him,” she continues.
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She says the office refused to give her a refund, so she went through with the scheduled procedure.
Armijo also claims there was a “very strong smell of alcohol” on Becker’s breath, per the complaint.
In her filing, she also claims Dr. Becker didn’t introduce himself as the surgeon to her fiancé, and “his markings were different than the ones he’d made before.” She says, “I asked him about it and he just said, ‘Oh don’t worry, I’ll get all your skin and pull you as tight as possible.’ “
According to Armijo, she, like Ellsworth, was instead left with large unsightly scars, a “shelf” of skin and “chunks of skin left on my hips.” She’s also been dealing with wound and skin infections for eight months, and can’t afford to get the procedures fixed.
Courtesy of Alicia Armijo
Alicia Armijo shares the results of her tummy tuck
“My body is just changed forever in a way that I wasn’t prepared for,” she says. “I got a tummy tuck to resolve the skin infections and I’m left with more skin infections… my emotional and mental health has taken a really big toll.”
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The two women claim they aren’t the only victims.
“I’m in contact with over a dozen women at this point,” Ellsworth says. “I have other women that need to be heard, and I’m not going to stop until every woman’s voice is heard. This is not going away.”
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Ellsworth later had a corrective surgery performed by a different surgeon two months after her initial surgery to fix her issues, and while she’s pleased with those results, she says the physical and mental scars of her first surgery are still with her.
“They run deep,” she says, adding that she’s been in therapy.
Armijo says she wishes she could correct the damage she claims Dr. Becker did, but doesn’t have the money. “The recovery was so hard, and to have to go through that again, I just don’t see that I can,” she says.
“I’m just going to have to be mutilated… I worked really hard for my body to not look like this. I wish I could go back in time and not done the surgery.”
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