WAUKESHA- A plastic surgery nightmare for one local family. A common procedure with a deadly outcome and now a father's emotional warning.A Waukesha woman went in for cosmetic surgery and never woke up. Her father calls it homicide. Now in a new book he continues his fight to bring "justice to Julie" and make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else."Your happy smile, your lovely face no can fill your vacant place." It's a father's poem to his daughter now part of a book about her death."I said this has to be a homicide. It's just gotta be; everybody knows it." Don Ayers is fighting for justice with the hope everyone will listen.Ayers daughter, Julie Rubenzer, stood out. A beautiful woman with what her father calls a powerful personality. "She walked into a room of strangers, by the time she walked out she knew every one of them."In 2003, Julie was 38-years-old, living in Florida and considering breast augmentation. "My wife thought she had her talked out of it," Ayers told us. Talked her out of a procedure that would end up costing Julie her life."Her breathing stopped on the table, her heart stopped," claims Ayers. In court testimony witnesses said Julie flat lined, and the doctor at that Florida clinic waited several minutes before starting chest compressions to bring her back.Julie lapsed into a coma and died three months later in a Wisconsin nursing home. Along the way, her parents kept a journal. They're now sharing that story in the book "The Who's Next Club." A story Don Ayers calls a travesty of justice.The doctor doing Julie's breast augmentation was actually an oral surgeon untrained in the use of powerful anesthetic drugs. Ayers points out, "the anesthesia was directed by the doctor who was not an anesthesiologist, had no certification in anesthesia whatsoever, none."Ayers published his daughter's story to make sure the mistakes that killed Julie don't happen in Wisconsin. Of concern, so called "store front" surgical centers like the one Julie went to in Florida. There is little to no monitoring of these clinics."Fortunately Wisconsin does not have a case that I'm aware of that represents this sort of tragedy, but we'd like to be sure that it never does." Dr. Robert Koebert is the former president of the Wisconsin Society of Anesthesiologists. They'd like to see a state law that requires "stand alone" surgical clinics be accredited. Right now in Wisconsin they're not. Risky for the patient, especially if you're having a procedure that requires anesthesia.Koebert says, "there's a very small difference between the doses that would be required in order to achieve adequate sedation to tolerate a procedure and the dose that would render them to stop breathing."In Julie's case the Florida doctor lost his license but was not criminally charged. Her death was ruled accidental. Her father disagrees, "she died of reckless medical malpractice." Ayers won't stop until somebody listens."This case shouldn't be let go because something positive should come out of this."Julie's family filed a wrongful death suit against the doctor. It was resolved with a cash settlement. Don Ayers is still fighting to get his daughter's cause of death changed from "accidental" to "homicide."And when it comes to state law, a bill was introduced by Representative Sandy Pasch last session. It died in committee. Despite that setback Pasch tells me she continues to work to promote safety in these clinics.
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