Dallas Woman Who Went To Mexico For Cheaper Nose Job Left Brain Damaged

A real estate agent from Dallas, Texas, who crossed the border for a cut-rate nose job is now on life support with severe brain damage after her Mexico trip went horribly wrong.

Laura Avila opted to book her rhinoplasty procedure at the Rino Center in Juarez, Mexico, because the price was estimated to be less than a third of the average cost for the same surgery in the United States — which can sit at around $7,500, according to the Daily Mail.

The 36-year-old traveled with her fiancé, Enrique Cruz, who was with her all the way until the operation began. However, the October 30 procedure turned into an absolute nightmare for the entire family when the anesthesia administrated via Avila’s spine traveled to her brain, instead of downward throughout her body.

Avila then went into cardiac arrest and was put under a medically-induced coma in order to avoid further brain damage, but her fiancé claims he was not informed about the extent or severeness of her condition at the time. He added that Rino Center doctors initially told him they couldn’t proceed with the operation because the patient’s blood pressure had dropped.

“I was really concerned… I got upset because they wouldn’t let me see her,” Cruz said.

The real estate agent was then kept in the clinic for four days before finally being moved to a university hospital in El Paso, Texas. She was refused treatment by three different hospitals in her hometown of Dallas because she didn’t have insurance, and her family said hospital officials at the Mexico center also “gave them a hard time about leaving” because they did not pay the bill.

Laura Avila was placed into a medically induced coma to prevent further damage to her brain, but she has yet to wake up after 12 days.

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“The hospital in Mexico basically held us hostage because we wouldn’t pay the full amount,” Avila’s sister Angie said, adding that she opted to cross the border to undertake the procedure there because of the cheaper costs.

It was only when she was taken to the Texas hospital that doctors delivered the heartbreaking news to her loved ones — that Avila was indeed brain dead. Angie Avila said the damage was so substantial that “she will never be our Laura again.”

Avila’s partner Enrique Cruz posted a heartfelt tribute to her on Facebook, sharing a picture of the two of them on Facebook with the caption, “I love you so much, I’m so lost without you..” The couple has been in a relationship for 10 years.

“We got married by God… no matter what happens, I want her to know [she] has a special place in my heart,” he told ABC 7.