Maryland Woman Dies After Receiving Illegal Buttocks Injections in New York Home

A Maryland woman who worked at BET in the District has died after undergoing a cosmetic procedure from an unlicensed plastic surgeon to enlarge her buttocks, according to media reports.

Kelly Mayhew, 34, of Suitland, Maryland, was found unresponsive in a Queens, New York home Saturday after she received a cosmetic procedure there, investigators from the New York Police Department told WNBC in New York.

Mayhew had driven to Queens with her mother earlier that day for the procedure. The suspect had agreed to perform it after being contacted by Mayhew's friend, her mother said. 

After receiving silicone injections in her buttocks, Mayhew started having difficulty breathing, her mother told police, according to the Daily News. Her mother began to perform CPR, but the suspect ran from the house and fled in a gray SUV, sources told the Daily News.

Police arrived at the home at 10-31 Dickens St. in the Far Rockaway area of Queens at about 6:45 p.m. EMS technicians brought Mayhew to an area hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Mayhew's cause of death will be determined by a medical examiner, the NYPD told WNBC. The investigation is ongoing. There is no description of the suspect available at this time, police said.

A woman died last year after a man without medical training gave her injections to enlarge her buttocks. Vinnie Taylor was charged with second-degree murder in January after the woman became ill after the injections given in March 2014, checked herself into a hospital and then died.

BET is mourning Mayhew's death.

“We are saddened by the death of our colleague and friend Kelly Mayhew," a company spokesman said. "Our heart goes out to her family and we extend our deepest sympathies for their loss.”

Anyone seeking cosmetic surgery should be sure their doctor is board certified, D.C. plastic surgeon Dr. Rondi Walker said.

"Just because somebody's advertising something as being less expensive, it may not be the real thing," she told NBC4's Shomari Stone. 

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