DIY plastic surgery leads to horrific injuries

Los Angeles (CNN) -- She's not gonna make it. We give her 24 hours.


Apryl Brown remembers lying on the hospital bed as the doctor uttered those words. A sense of relief came over her.


"I didn't think about losing my children. I didn't think about
leaving my mother," she said. She thought instead of how death would
feel. "Although I will be dead, I will not be in pain anymore."


That searing pain came from an unimaginable source: a silicone
filler, like the one Brown assumed plastic surgeons use daily. Hers was
injected into her buttocks,with the hope of improving her appearance.

Apryl Brown nearly died after complications from butt injections.

Surgeon: 'Pumping parties' major gamble

Brown never predicted the injections would land her here -- dying in a hospital bed in June 2010.


Her body was shutting down from a staph infection that doctors said
was connected to the silicone injections. Her limbs were curling and
turning black, the visible signs of necrosis. Brown recalled seeing her
hands in the hospital, thinking, "Oh, my God. I am going to lose my
hands. I looked at my feet ,and they were dead, too."


Doctors had no choice. To save Brown's life, they amputated her
hands, feet and the flesh around her buttocks and hips in 27 surgeries.
Somehow, she survived.


Brown is still embarrassed as she talks about the vanity that nearly cost her everything.


Living a good life, except for a flat 'flaw'


At the time, she was a successful hair stylist and owned a salon.
When she wasn't at her shop, she was busy raising two daughters. Life
was good. But Brown always wanted to fix what she saw as her "flaw."


Ever since she was a little girl growing up in Florida, Brown
remembers being teased about having a flat butt. Growing up, she always
wanted a fuller posterior and even had a mantra, "When I get me some
money, I am going to get me some butt."


In 2004, while she was working on a new client's hair, she got her
chance. The client happened to mention she did silicone injections
cheaply. With a few sessions, she told Brown, she could obtain the shape
she had always wanted. Brown was sold. A week later, she found herself
in a house lying down in a bedroom receiving her first of four
injections into her butt cheeks.


Following her second treatment, Brown remembers doubting her
decision. "A voice just came to me like, 'What are you doing? Are you
serious? You are going to allow somebody to inject something into your
body and you have no idea what it is.'" Brown decided that day to stop
doing the treatments and never went back.

When plastic surgery goes wrong

Is this going too far for a ring selfie?

The true cost of the injections would come later, following years of pain and visits with doctors.


Brown's story may be severe, but she is part of what the American
Society of Plastic Surgeons calls a growing problem: patients bypassing
doctors just to save some money on basic medical procedures.


"I think that's awfully seductive to a person who doesn't know."

 - CNN.com