Rebecca Brizard was 27 years old, had three children, and owned a clothing business that she managed between real estate appointments.
On July 25, she entered a clinic in the Alma Rosa I area of Santo Domingo Este to undergo an abdominoplasty. She was operated on by 38-year-old Emanuel Hernández Medrano, a man with no medical or surgical degree: he was a barber. Rebecca did not make it out of that operating room alive.
Dr. Griselda Basora, the owner of the center, admitted to authorities that Hernández had already operated on two other patients before Rebecca. One of them, Gloria Mejía, spent six months treating an infection caused by that clandestine surgery. The facility operated without a license and was shut down after Rebecca’s death. Hernández fled to Colombia hours later, and Health Minister Víctor Atallah promised consequences while the police continued to track him.
