A young beauty queen thought her pageant prize of free plastic surgery was to die for — until it actually killed her, the girl’s family claims.
Catherine Cando Cornejo — a gorgeous 19-year-old who won “Queen of Duran” in Ecuador in October — died Saturday during an abdominal liposuction in Guayaquil, her family said.
The brunette stunner was admitted to a Guayaquil clinic at 8:23 a.m., hoping to slim one inch from her already small waist.
But nearly 10 hours later her family was notified she had died. They claim it was due to medical malpractice.
“The doctor insisted on several occasions . . . and convinced her to undergo surgery,” her brother Daniel Zavala Cornejo said.
“She was thinking about letting someone else have it as a freebie but eventually she agreed to have it just to get him off her back,” he said
The beauty queen, who was also a student and a model, died of cerebral edema, or swelling of the brain, according to Carlos Reyes, a lawyer for the family.
“The clinic lawyer said the death was due to cardiac arrest — but we have a copy of the autopsy and it turns out the cause was stated as cerebral edema; this is presumably due to problems with anesthesia,” Reyes said.
The surgery was awarded for winning the pageant, according to a complaint filed by the family.
But a spokesman for the mayor of Duran said the doctor who performed the operation was on the jury and had given the pageant winner a $1,000 coupon for surgery.
Lawyer Carlos Reyes Izquierdo said: “I was told she had died of a brain edema, but the clinic staff told her relatives that she had died of a cardiac arrest.
“We made it clear that the prizes we hand out, our prizes, were a car and tablet,” he said.
Authorities are investigating the case and have not made any arrests.
Professional malpractice, including medical malpractice, is punishable with one to three years in prison in Ecuador.
President Rafael Correa has previously criticized beauty pageants. In 2010, he ordered the Education Ministry to ban the events in public schools on grounds that they had no educational value and were sexist.
With Post Wires