It has been revealed the Australian woman who died from a 'simple medical procedure' in Mexico was in the country to have buttock implants by a doctor who was once threatened with legal action by television celebrity Kim Kardashian.
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Evita Nicole Sarmonikas, 29, died on Saturday after suffering a cardiac arrest during surgery at the Hospital Quirurgico del Valle in Mexicali, Mexico, an autopsy showed.
The Gold Coast Bulletin has spoken to Ms Sarmonikas' cousin Nick Tsagalias, who confirmed her surgery was for buttock implants. This has been verified by a second family member.
Plastic surgeon Victor Ramirez is understood to be the man who operated on Ms Sarmonikas. It was a procedure expected to go for 2½ hours, and then require two months of recovery, according to his website.
Dr Ramirez was involved in a legal dispute with Kardashian in 2012 after using a picture of her on a billboard to promote his business.
The billboard showed Kardashian lying down, with a slogan which when translated read: "Don't risk your beauty or your health."
Dr Ramirez did not ask Kardashian if he could use the photo, which prompted her to threaten legal action, mainly because she has denied ever having had plastic surgery or implants.
His website describes the perfect candidate for buttock surgery as someone with "lack of volume of the buttocks."
"Currently, the safest way to achieve the desired results through buttock augmentation is using silicone implants," says a procedure outline on Dr Ramirez' website.
"Although it might seem easy and economical, never allow anyone to inject substances that increase the volume of the buttocks through the injection of oily substances because the damage that they cause is irreversible due to the fact that the modelling agents cannot be extracted from your body and will generate serious problems the rest of your life."
Ms Sarmonikas' family, who have set up a Facebook page for her, wrote that she travelled to Mexicali, the capital of the Mexican state of Baja California, with her boyfriend to have a cosmetic procedure.
Without saying what type of procedure, the family wrote that Ms Sarmonikas, who grew up on the Gold Coast, was "filled with certain inadequacies".
"Her perfect and whole soul was not strong enough in light of a world that constantly bombarded her with an urgency to demand more from her self and her body," the family wrote on Facebook.
"This was not the way to go home, no woman should risk death to improve on perfection."
The family has been notified of the autopsy results.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was providing consular assistance to the family of an Australian woman who died in Mexicali, Mexico.
With Megan Levy
