A Miami doctor with a Brazilian butt lift death and an $825,000 BBL injury
A fatal Brazilian butt lift resulted in a Miami plastic surgeon’s second insurance payout in a year and his second state complaint in four years.
Each of these surgeries by Dr. Oliver Chang occurred at Spectrum Aesthetics, 51 SW 42nd Ave., run by directors Janet Marrero and Vinson Di Santo, according to state records.
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Chang has been board certified in general surgery by the American Board of Surgery since 2016 and by the American Board of Plastic Surgery since 2019. The Florida license he has had since June 2013 remained clean after a 2021 administrative complaint concerning 2018 post-operative care didn’t lead to punitive action.
Within a week of that administrative complaint posting, a March 9, 2021, Brazilian butt lift by Chang at Spectrum ended in a lawsuit. Florida Office of Insurance Regulation online records say Chang’s insurance paid $825,000 in the lawsuit settlement after “alleged improper performance of lipectomy and fat transfer surgery resulting in neurologic injury to right leg.”
That’s more than insurance paid for a 2022 BBL with far more severe consequences.
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A Brazilian butt lift gone ultimately bad
A 36-year-old woman came into Spectrum for a BBL on Jan. 12, 2022, according to the administrative complaint. A BBL involves sucking the fat from the back and abdomen and injecting it into the buttocks area — but not into the butt muscles. That, the complaint said, is exactly what Chang did.
Afterward, the woman went into medical distress and didn’t respond to drugs. EMS took her to Jackson Memorial Hospital, attempted resuscitation on the way. She died at Jackson.
The autopsy, the complaint said, reported that the woman’s “pulmonary arteries contained ‘multiple ... fragments of fatty tissue’ and ‘fatty tissue within the small vessels of the lungs.’ ”
Chang’s insurance paid out $800,000 in a settlement.
This story was originally published May 14, 2025 at 11:35 AM.
