Woman Claims Surgeon Gave Her 'Four Breasts'
March 9, 2010— -- A woman from Staten Island, N.Y., is suing her former cosmetic surgeon because, she claims, a botched breast implant surgery left her with "four breasts."
The woman, Maria Alaimo, was 40 years old when she paid about $7,000 for breast implants in 2003. She now alleges that her surgeon, Dr. Ken Keith Berman, was at fault when she ended up with four round bumps instead of two symmetrical C cups, according to court reporting by the Staten Island Advance.
"Maria came out of that operation with essentially four breasts," the Staten Island Advance reports her attorney, Michael J. Kuharski, told jurors during the March 1 opening arguments. Berman's attorney, Jerry Giardina, declined to comment to ABC News. Kuharski declined to elaborate on what he meant by "four breasts" but said he expects the trial to end next week
Yet cosmetic surgeons say they are familiar with what doctors call "double bubble."
"It does not look like four breasts -- you see a fullness on the top, and a fullness on the bottom," said Dr. Michael Olding, chief of the division of plastic surgery at the George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
Cosmetic surgeons say the "double bubble" is a real risk of breast augmentation surgery -- even if the average client hasn't heard about it. Occasionally, through negligence or just bad luck, the implants appear as a second bump under the natural breasts.
"The perception is breast augmentation is pretty straightforward -- you put an implant under your breast and it gets bigger," said Dr. Jeffrey Kenkel, a spokesman for the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.
In reality, Kenkel said, doctors have to be careful about correct positioning and sizing. Kenkel made an analogy of the breast to a cone: the implant must fit only at the base of the cone and cannot be too narrow or too wide.
