Sara Platt was left in debilitating pain, suffered shocking injuries and became so badly infected, a Turkish surgeon had to operate on her while she was awake. ITV News Reporter Ellie Pitt spoke to Sara and her team of NHS medics as they prepare for her 10th operation to fix the damage.
Sara Platt had an operation in Turkey in 2021 to reduce the size of her stomach.
She lost 12 stone but was left with excess skin that she said rubbed together, causing sores and an unpleasant smell.
The 33-year-old spent a year researching her options and visited a Turkish clinic before choosing which company to go with.
In February 2023, Sara flew over to have the skin removed as well as a breast lift and implants.
But as soon as she woke up from the procedure, she felt something was wrong.
“I remember coming round and my Dad being by the side of me and saying, ‘you need to breathe Sara, you need to breathe’,” she said,
“There were loads of nurses around me and I was like ‘kill me, tell them to kill me, Dad, you need to tell them to kill me. I can’t do this, you need to tell them’.”
“I’d never experienced this…I wanted to die. I couldn’t deal with this pain.
“I remember realising that my breast, after an hour of coming around, my breast was purple. It was totally purple.”
Nine days after her surgery, Sara was feeling seriously ill. She decided to ask her husband to help remove her bandages in the hotel bathroom.
She explained: “As he was undoing it, all this brown liquid started seeping out of my body. I screamed. I felt like I was falling apart. It was like, oh my god, my insides are gonna come out.
“It’s not a health holiday. They told me I’d be sitting by the pool within three days. I was rotting in a hotel room.”
Sara’s dream of a new body had become a nightmare and was close to killing her.
As she lay in her hotel room, her wounds were not healing, her body was riddled with infection and her skin tissue was dying.
The Turkish surgeon decided to perform a second procedure.
This time Sara was not taken into an operating theatre but what looked like a beauty clinic
Only local anaesthetic was used during the surgery. It meant Sara was awake while the doctor worked on the wound in her stomach.
“He was handed a burning tool. And he started burning me. And that, that will, for the rest of my life, haunt me every day, every night. That ruined my life, that did,” she said.
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“I could hear the sizzling in my skin. I felt like I was on fire.”
After the second surgery, Sara was given a fit-to-fly certificate that allowed her to return home to South Wales.
When she got back, she went to A&E where Professor Iain Whitaker was the Consultant Plastic Surgeon on call.
“Sara’s was a devastating case with significant infection, lots of tissue that was dead. It was life-threatening, if there’d been a delay in hospital admission or transfer, then there definitely would have been a chance of mortality,” Professor Whitaker said.
Sara spent more than eight weeks in hospital in Wales and underwent nine surgeries to save her life and rebuild her body.
Her right breast could not be rescued and she has significant scarring, including a skin graft on her stomach that attached to the muscle beneath.
This is known as tethering and has been causing Sara excruciating pain while also limiting her physical mobility.
Sara allowed ITV News to follow her as she had her tenth corrective operation following her botched surgery in Turkey.
The mum of four said she let the cameras in because she wanted to show the real consequences of having cosmetic procedures abroad and warn others.
On August 14 2024, Sara had surgery to remove the 8cm wide and 11cm long skin graft. Professor Whitaker successfully closed the gap it left and sealed her skin.
He believes it will significantly reduce her pain and improve her range of movement.
The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons estimates that the average cost to the NHS to treat those with complications from surgery abroad is £15,000 per patient.
Professor Whitaker said as well as the financial implications, treating patients like Sara also costs the NHS “bed days where other patients could be treated”.
“There’s no doubt we would like not to be doing these procedures because these were done well in the first place,” he said.
“But I think particularly if it’s affecting pain or function or the psychological effects, people may think it’s just aesthetic and it really isn’t.
“Whether there should be a cost that the patient themselves pay or insurance pays or comes from overseas is, is something that is being discussed.”
Sara says she “cannot be more thankful” for her surgery and the care she has received and will “repay the NHS for saving my life”.
For advice on surgery abroad:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/cosmetic-procedures/advice/cosmetic-surgery-abroad/
https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/turkey/healthhttps://baaps.org.uk/patients/safety_in_surgery/cosmetic_tourism.aspx
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