They told me that they needed to continue."Įmma says Dr Lanzer insisted that, as her surgeon, only he could fix her. Screaming and begging for the surgery to be over. "Multiple times during the surgery I sat up in a jackknife position howling in pain. "I was crying out in pain and Dr Lanzer was telling me to just take deep breaths and to 'shoosh'. I don't know if they were trying to put me at ease or if they just didn't care," Emma says. "During the surgery Dr Lanzer and were smiling, laughing and cracking jokes. "In the presence of infection, local anaesthetic either doesn't work at all, or is so weak in its effectiveness that you're effectively operating without local anaesthetic at all." "You cannot fix this under local anaesthetic without causing unbelievable, excruciating pain," he says. ( Source: The Cosmetic Surgery Show/Seven Network)įormer president of the Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons Professor Mark Ashton says local anaesthetic would not have been strong enough to manage her pain. Pain that I have never felt in my life," she says.ĭr Lanzer's Melbourne clinic featured in the opening titles of his TV show. The pain was excruciating, I have no other words to explain it. "Dr Lanzer and began operating on me and I was in so much pain. What unfolded that night still haunts Emma. "I was scared and very frightened but I thought I needed this and I would be fine once it was done." 'I was crying out in pain'
"They told me that I wouldn't need a general anaesthetic, that Dr Lanzer was a pioneer at performing surgery under local conditions and that I might feel some initial discomfort during the procedure," she says. When Emma arrived at the clinic, she was greeted by nurse Justin Nixon and two doctors – Dr Daniel Lanzer and another doctor - who told her they were going to reopen the wound that stretched across the base of her abdomen, wash out the inside of the abdominal wall and re-staple her up.
The worst place you can be is 30,000 feet where nothing and nobody can do a thing to help," Dr Cronin says. "The most concerning part of this story is she was advised to jump on a flight. Plastic surgeon Dr Drew Cronin - who Emma consulted afterwards - says this is incredibly dangerous. ( Supplied: Daniel Lanzer)Įmma says he insisted she fly back to Melbourne so he could operate. She had wanted to see a doctor in Brisbane to repair the damage but says Dr Lanzer told her, as the surgeon, only he could fix her.ĭr Lanzer gave a legally enforceable undertaking to stop practicing medicine in Australia until an AHPRA investigation is completed.
Since then, her stomach had swollen and darkened and a nurse had told her the skin around the incision line was breaking down. Twelve days earlier she had been to the same clinic to have Dr Lanzer perform a tummy tuck and stitch together her abdominal muscles. When Emma (not her real name) arrived at Dr Lanzer's deserted Melbourne clinic on a Saturday night in 2019, she was in a bad way. WARNING: THIS STORY CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES OF A PATIENT'S WOUND POST-SURGERY The late-night surgery A former patient of Dr Daniel Lanzer says she was left with "putrid" rotting skin after an "excruciating" operation to fix a tummy tuck that the controversial cosmetic surgeon insisted only he could do.ĭr Lanzer has given a legally enforceable undertaking to stop practising medicine in Australia and his practices in Sydney and Melbourne have stopped taking bookings, after a joint Four Corners investigation with the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age uncovered evidence of dangerous practices across his network of clinics.įederal Health Minister Greg Hunt has referred the "serious allegations" aired on Four Corners to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), as dozens more patients come forward with their own experiences.ĪHPRA says the undertaking not to practice will remain in place until it completes its investigation.