Those who survive are not in the clear and are often left with pain and disfigurement years later
LIKE her idols Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj, Kelly Mayhew was a confident young woman who embraced her curves.
Her Facebook feed was full of photos of her happily posing and showing off her size-16 figure – one even had the caption: “Brains, beauty, boobs and booty!”
But then, on May 30 last year, Kelly and her figure made headlines when she tragically died after having illegal silicone injections in her bottom to make it look bigger. She was just 34.
The unidentified female black-market “surgeon” who injected the cosmetic filler into Kelly’s body in a basement apartment in Queens, New York, fled soon after her patient began convulsing and struggling to breathe during the procedure.
Just hours later, Kelly was pronounced dead.
In October, the New York City Medical Examiner ruled her death a homicide.
Systemic silicone emboli – the silicone clots that blocked Kelly’s blood vessels – were found to be the cause.
The unlicensed surgeon who killed her is still on the run.
It was Kelly’s sixth butt augmentation, and while at least the first was administered by a licensed doctor, subsequent procedures were not.
But what would make a bright young woman risk her life like that?
According to a former boyfriend, despite her Facebook declarations Kelly, who worked in TV, wasn’t as happy with her figure as she seemed.
“She would say to me: ‘I want things to fit right,’” her ex, who didn’t want to be named, said during an interview last June with website The Daily Beast.
“I would talk to her, but she continued to say her clothes don’t fit the way her body was shaped.”
Kelly wasn’t alone in trying to reshape her body with the help of a black-market industry.
The combination of a low price tag and the fact unlicensed practitioners are prepared to push the boundaries to get extreme results is too much for some to resist.
“Women are paying thousands to get silicone injections from rogue doctors in a quest to get the type of bottom Kim Kardashian-West would envy,” explains Dr Dionne Stephens, an associate professor in psychology at Florida International University.
In fact, Kelly was so desperate to have the procedure, thought to have cost around £1,200, that she drove seven hours with her mother
Latrice Mayhew-Lane, now 51, from her home in Suitland, Maryland, to Queens, New York, where the operation took place.
According to news reports, she wasn’t the only young woman going there to buy herself a new bottom.
The landlady of the block of apartments told the website DNAinfo: “I thought something was going on. Women were coming back and forth. Some of them had weird butts.”
Given that these illegal operations are carried out in non-clinical environments such as hotels, salon backrooms or someone’s home, with a conveyor-belt line of patients, sometimes in groups, they’ve earned the nickname “pump parties”.
While according to the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) there’s no record of this happening in the UK yet, unlicensed Botox parties have already hit our shores and experts predict that if we’re not vigilant, pump parties could be next.
“In the last year, I’ve noticed a 30-40% rise in women aged 25-40 asking about bum-enhancement procedures, including fat injections,” says UK-based consultant plasticsurgeon Paul Banwell.
“This could be just the tip of the iceberg. While pump parties don’t seem to be happening here just yet, it’s still a serious concern, as often these trends start in America before coming to Britain.
“We need to reinforce the message that any such procedure is a medical one and it’s vital to go to a recognised practitioner,” he says.
“There’s no justification – financial or otherwise – for having any cosmetic work done in a non-clinical environment.”
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) reported that bottom implants were the fastest growing type of cosmetic surgery in 2015 in
the US, up by 36% in just one year.
On average, one buttock procedure is being performed every 30 minutes by licensed doctors.
Women who have illegal procedures don’t know what they’re being injected with – it can be anything from tyre sealant to cooking oil
But when it comes to backstreet booty jabs, one of the main dangers is the substances used for fillers – especially bearing in mind that even those administered by a qualified surgeon carry risks, such as the implant shifting or infection.
“You never know what’s being injected into you if you visit an unlicensed practitioner,” says Dr Constantino Mendieta, a Miami-based plastic surgeon known as Dr Butt due to his expertise in buttock enhancement.
“Some people are injected with cooking oil, others get tyre sealant or even the silicone that you can buy in hardware stores.”
However, the actual number of people who go to pump parties is unclear.
“People aren’t talking about it → because what the ‘doctors’ are using and the process are both illegal,” says Dionne.
“The only time we hear about these operations is when someone gets hurt or they die. But we didn’t hear about these 10 years ago – so we do know they’re increasing. Women are willing to risk it as they don’t think anything bad will happen to them. It always happens to someone else.”
British student Claudia Aderotimi died in 2011 after going to Philadelphia to have an illegal procedure in a cheap hotel room
British women are already risking everything to travel abroad for the “perfect” bum.
In February 2011, 20-year-old British student Claudia Aderotimi went to Philadelphia to have a £1,000 procedure performed in a cheap hotel room.
Her “surgeon” was Padge-Victoria Windslowe – a transsexual who dubbed herself the“Michelangelo of butt injections”.
However, Claudia suffered chest pains and breathing problems soon after her procedure and was rushed to hospital, where she later died. Windslowe received a sentence of between 10 and 20 years for causing her death.
According to Claudia’s friends, the dancer and choreographer dreamed of becoming a hip-hop video star.
“She loved to dance and had a drive to be famous,” said London talent scout Tee Ali at the time.
“The problem was she didn’t have a butt. She went to audition for one video shoot wearing fake booty pants and she got all the attention. When they found out it was fake, she didn’t get asked back.”
Claudias surgeon was Padge-Victoria Windslowe: She was sentenced to between 10 and 20 years in prison for causing her death
It’s our celeb-obsessed culture, experts say, that has contributed to the rising popularity of bigger bums.
“It’s not uncommon for patients now to ask for a Kim Kardashian-West bum,” admits Paul.
“They want to copy that look and without a doubt this is down to the rise of social media, especially if you think about how many body pictures celebrities upload daily. These days, surgeons need to be very circumspect and understand patients’ motivations and desires, while also being utterly honest about what procedures involve. It’s not as simple as just having something injected into your bum because you want to look like a Kardashian.”
Karima Gordon, from Atlanta, died when loose silicone travelled up to her lungs just days after she’d received an illegal £150 butt filler injection in March 2012 from transsexual Mississippi “‘nurse” Tracey Lynn Garner.
When the model eventually went to her local hospital a few days after the procedure complaining of breathing problems, no one knew what was wrong.
Seventy-two hours later, the 37 year old was dead.
Her sister Cyndee, 50, can still remember her mother calling to say Karima, who had a 16-year-old son called Khallid, was in hospital after complaining she wasn’t feeling well.
“At first we just thought maybe she had a stomach virus,” recalls Cyndee.
“But then her health quickly deteriorated and my family called to say she was on a breathing machine. I spent two days by Karima’s side until she died just after midnight on March 24. It was heartbreaking – and all so unnecessary.”
Her family only realised illegal buttock injections were the cause of Karima’s death after going through the text messages on her phone, which detailed her plans to have injections through to the crippling pains she began to suffer as she struggled to breathe.
Until then they had no idea she was even unhappy with her shape.
“I think she wanted to try and get the procedure done without us knowing,” says Cyndee, who still cries when she thinks about what happened to her little sister.
“I feel she was very naive and, I’m assuming, didn’t look into it as deeply as she should have, or maybe she just took the risk.”
In 2014 Tracey Lynn Garner was sentenced to life in prison for killing Karima.
She had no official training or licence to carry out such procedures and an investigator testified he found a bottle of silicone and syringes labelled “For veterinary use only” on her premises.
However, Garner is yet to stand trial for similar charges in the 2010 death of Marilyn Hale, 23, from Alabama.
While Karima, Kelly, Claudia and Marilyn paid the ultimate price for having backstreet buttock injections, even those who survive the procedure are not in the clear.
And no one knows this better than Dr Mendieta, who’s seen scores of women who’ve had botched bottom surgery come to him desperate for it to be corrected.
Dr Mendieta says that sometimes the only way to correct botched bottom injections is to remove the area completely, leaving crater-like holes
“The issue really is five to 10 years on when the product starts to react, when your body starts to spit it out and you get infections, hardness, pain and disfigurement of the buttock,” he explains, adding that sometimes the only way to correct it is to cut those areas out completely, leaving scars and crater-like holes.
“Many of these ladies are very image conscious, so it’s devastating psychologically, emotionally and sexually. But they come to me in utter desperation because they can no longer stand the pain.”
Following Karima’s death, her family decided to set up a foundation in her name to educate others about the risks of illegal black-market cosmetic enhancements.
“A lot of women just don’t realise the danger they’re putting themselves in,” explains Cyndee.
“But they need to know they really can die having these procedures. It’s just not worth it.”
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