A plastic surgeon in Florida has been arrested for the involuntary manslaughter of his wife, who allegedly operated on her shortly before her death.
On Nov. 21, emergency services were at the Restorative Plastic Surgery Clinic in Gulf Breeze. Benjamin Brown was performing surgery on his wife, Hilary Brown, when her vital signs went down. Then she started to feel pain.
He was rushed to a local hospital where he remained alive on a ventilator for seven days.
“After an extensive investigation along with the District 1 Medical Examiner’s Office and Attorney General’s Office, our detectives requested the arrest of Dr. Benjamin Brown,” the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post.
The plastic surgeon was arrested Monday before being released on $50,000 bail, according to NBC News.
At the time of the incident, Benjamin Brown was performing scar revision, arm liposuction, lip injections and ear repair procedures on Hilary Brown. According to health department documents obtained by NBC News, the woman prepared her own IV bags and took “multiple colored pills,” including Valium.
The victim was agitated and his legs were shaking. According to the same documents, she would have indicated that her vision was blurry and that she saw orange.
“Agitation, muscle twitching and blurred vision are early symptoms of lidocaine toxicity,” the health department noted.
According to witnesses, Benjamin Brown “continued to inject an unknown amount of lidocaine” even after the first signs of an overdose. He only stopped when his wife had a seizure and a heart attack.
US media reported that he would have waited before calling 911 and beginning resuscitation maneuvers.
