Mother of two who lost her hands and feet after being injected by a fake plastic surgeon to get bigger buttocks

A mother of two who lost her hands and feet and nearly her life after a silicone filler procedure went horribly wrong says she is a living example of what can happen when you put your life in the hands of rogue cosmetic surgery practitioners.Apryl Brown, from Los Angeles, was a successful hair stylist who owned her own salon, but had always wanted to fix what she saw as her ‘flaw’ – her flat bottom.Instead of a curvier behind, Apryl was left in agony and eventually had to undergo 27 surgeries to have her buttocks, legs and arms amputated after a black market practitioner injected her with industrial grade silicone of the sort commonly used in bathroom sealant.

Since recovering from the horrific ordeal the 47-year-old has devoted much of her time to speaking out and encouraging others to think twice about what they let someone inject in their bodies and seek out skilled professionals.‘All I would ask them to do is, when you have that first thought, make sure they have a second thought about it and do a little research. And if they still want to do it, go for it,' she told CNN.Her problems began in 2005 when a woman claiming she could provide buttock injections walked into her salon.
Instead of telling her to leave, Apryl, who says she always wanted bigger buttocks, was thrilled and immediately agreed to have the treatment. At first, everything seemed fine but just months after having the injections, the pain began.

'They [Apryl's buttocks] started to get hard, and then they started to get discoloured,' she explains. 'By 2006, it was starting to itch and by 2007, the pain started. 'One thing about pain is that you can't turn it off. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I couldn't even concentrate.'
But things continued to get worse. ''I had gone to this party one Saturday night and woke up Sunday morning and thought "oh my God, Apryl!". I just couldn't pull myself together,' she remembers.'That night was the roughest night of my life. I literally scratched all of the skin off my buttocks. My nails pulled all of the skin off my body. And when my sister came in, and she saw that, it freaked her out.'
Apryl was rushed to hospital, where surgeons discovered that a massive infection caused by the impure silicone had caused her body to go into severe shock.'The only end point on silicone injections is removal,' explains the doctor who saved Apryl's life, James Jens Black.

After a month in a coma, Apryl awoke to a very different world. The drugs that saved Apryl's life had diverted blood flow to her essential organs, keeping her heart beating and liver functioning as her body fought off the infection.


But her hands and feet, starved of oxygen while the drugs did their work, had died. 'I just moved the cover and I saw my right foot and I thought "oh my God" and it was that moment, that's when it got real,' remembers Apryl.


'They were just black and swollen and necrotic and there was gangrene, and one [of Apryl's family members] said: "just look at your hands" and I looked and that's when it got really real.


Along with her buttocks, too damaged and infected from the injections to remain, her hands and feet had to be amputated.

Despite the heavy price she paid for cheap surgery, Apryl says that she's recovering and is determined to enjoy the rest of her life.