'I nearly left my five-year-old son an orphan because I wanted a bigger bum'

A mum who narrowly escaped death after having a liquid BBL in England has warned others against the procedure.

Bonnie-Louise Cooper, 27, believed she was making a sensible decision by choosing to have the procedure in England rather than travelling to Turkey. She chose Lift Aesthetics from Essex, a firm that counts Katie Price among its "beautiful clients" and has featured on the celebrity's social media accounts.

However, after spending weeks in hospital last November due to a severe sepsis infection caused by a liquid BBL arranged with the firm, Bonnie-Louise's opinion changed. The mother feared leaving her five year old son without a parent and still suffers from nerve damage and numbness, causing loss of sensation in her legs and changes in foot colour, reports the Mirror.

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UK surgeons are supporting The Mirror's campaign to halt unregulated cosmetic procedures following Bonnie-Louise's experience.

She said: "I'm backing The Mirror campaign and speaking out to stop other women and mums getting hurt. This industry is madness."

The young mother told of being left devastated upon learning about the death of Alice Webb, 33, who died in September after undergoing a liquid BBL procedure in Gloucestershire. The Royal College of Surgeons also expressed concerns over potential fatalities resulting from "out of control" cosmetic companies and practitioners.

The exact number of 'aesthetic practitioners' operating in High Streets and homes across the country is unknown, but it's feared that there could now be between 100,000 and 200,000.

Professor Vivien Lees, Vice President of RCS England and consultant plastic surgeon, told The Mirror: "The situation is out of control in the UK. Cosmetic procedures must be regulated as soon as possible before there is another death. We are supporting this important campaign, to work together, to protect people seeking these treatments."

She added: "In the hands of an untrained person, these procedures place members of the public at significant risk of harm, injury and potential death. The resulting complications can be permanent, affecting more than just physical appearance. There may be psychological and social repercussions too.

"More serious complications may result in the need for emergency medical care, with the NHS picking up the bill for this. It also seems untrained individuals, who are carrying out medical procedures in high-street beauty clinics, do not understand the risk of infection. Anyone carrying out these procedures must be able to deal with problems that may arise. The Government must act now. The risks are just too high for patients."

Their support for the campaign follows that from The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) and long-term campaigners Save Face, who have been fighting for change for years.

Single mum, Bonnie-Louise, shared with The Mirror: "I thought I was doing the safe thing by not going to Turkey or Prague but the procedures here can be just as deadly and they can also cause life long complications. Us surviving girls are still not okay, we have scarring, we have physical hardships. I have a young son and he could have ended up an orphan."

Bonnie, a beautician from Swanage in Dorset, decided to undergo the £3,000 procedure with Life Aesthetics after conducting her research. She was impressed by their prestigious healthcare address of 7 Harley Street, London.

However, The Mirror understands that this address has been vacant for several years and is currently under construction. She said: "They didn't send me the postcode until the night before and it was Romford in Essex (not the Harley Street she was expecting). They told me they had two clinics and that day they were working from Romford. I thought I was going somewhere safe. They described it as non-invasive, saying it was pain free and zero down time."

She arranged the procedure through two women, but when she arrived, a man was performing the BBL.

"I was nervous and I asked a lot of questions and he was really reassuring, saying it was not painful," she said. However, Bonnie then endured 40 minutes of excruciating pain.

"Oh my gosh, I have a son and it's the worst pain I've ever had in my life. Every time he injected me, I had a shooting pain, I screamed it was so bad. He just made out to me he had not seen someone react this way and actually suggested I had a low pain threshold."

She was under the impression she had been administered Lidocaine, but the hospital later informed her that it wasn't the pain blocker prescribed. Her inquiries regarding the type of filler used remained unanswered by the clinic.

The Mirror has attempted to reach out to the company for clarification but to no avail, with calls to listed mobile numbers going unanswered. Efforts to connect with a woman named as a director of the firm resulted in her denying any association with the company.

The qualifications of those who performed Bonnie's procedure remain unclear.

After returning home from the clinic, Bonnie recounts: "I was delirious, I was crying and could not stand or sit. I was vomiting. My sister called for an ambulance. The paramedics arrived quickly and they did observations and said it was obviously some sort of infection. The area was on fire.

"They measured a 3cm by 3cm lump on the incision site. They tried to stand me up to get me into the ambulance but I collapsed. My sister thought I was going to die. The next thing I remember is waking up in an ambulance being blue lighted. I woke up on my front with vomit all over me. It was so confusing. This is when I realised how bad it was.

"I arrived at the hospital and they took me out in stretcher, there was a massive queue in A&E and there was a nurse waiting for me and they wheeled me into my own room. You know it's serious when you're skipping the queue in A&E.

"I was really poorly, the pain overrides everything and you can't think straight. I was crying in pain. When they took me down to MRI every bump was horrific. I was sweating my forehead was dripping. The doctors came into the room and told me: 'You could die within the hour'. They came in six of them putting IV drips in both of your arms. It was rushed.

"I remember thinking of my son who is completely dependent on me. I started crying. He would be an orphan, I had to get home for him.

"I don't want another mum to go through this, we have to get them to act now.

"For four months after my mobility was bad, I couldn't walk properly because of the nerve damage, the pain took a good five months to actually subside."

It is believed a traffic light system is under consideration which puts procedures into red, amber and green categories governing who can perform them.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson stated: "We are extremely concerned by reports of highly invasive cosmetic procedures being performed by inadequately trained practitioners. The safety of patients is paramount, and we would urge anyone considering cosmetic surgery to consider the possible health impacts and find a reputable, insured and qualified surgeon."

They added, "All doctors performing cosmetic surgery in the UK must be registered with and licensed to practise by the General Medical Council (GMC). We are exploring options around regulation of the cosmetics sector and will provide an update in due course."

Britain's leading plastic surgeons have raised an alarm over what they describe as a "horrifying blind spot" within the UK that permits just about anyone to conduct potentially hazardous cosmetic practices. Nora Nugent, President of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS), expressed grave concern, saying: "It is horrifying" and has called upon the Government to urgently take action.

Nugent highlighted the UK's peculiar situation in an interview with The Mirror: "The UK is in a very strange position where we have a very regulated healthcare system but a complete blind spot for all of these procedures and lack of regulation about who can do what," acknowledging the disturbing reality of the situation. Addressing the death of Alice Webb, 33, following a liquid BBL procedure, she remarked: "Obviously it was a tragic situation but it was a tragedy waiting to happen, we've been saying for years that more regulation is needed."

"It's been a problem for years...If they don't do anything about it, there's nothing to stop the same scenario happening again."

Back in 2013, Sir Bruce Keogh warned the then Government it was a 'crisis waiting to happen'. She highlighted how non-medical individuals, such as beauticians, have been employing "dangerous" techniques on High Streets nationwide that could perforate someone's abdomen, cause nerve damage or neck bleeding.

They have been performing liposuction and fat transfer with non-sterile gloves, visible jumpers and sleeves in the surgical area, and incisions made in the wrong place. "Those are pretty high risk problems to have and total lack of awareness of sterility, of risk of complications," she said.

However, Dr Nugent cautioned that even lip fillers can cause blindness in rare instances. The surgeon from Tunbridge Wells stated that the cost price of reputable brands of facial fillers is between £100 and £175 for 1mm so if anyone is offering lip filler for less than £100 it is "too good to be true".

"Anyone who is doing it for that price hasn't put a lot into their training," she added. "They are training other people when they don't know what they are doing themselves.

"And advertising really cheap procedures which for these sorts of things means you are using cheap products. It's a money-making racket.

"There are any number of people walking around with terrible lip fillers, overdone, lumpy, filler migrating above the lip because they've put too much in or they have put it in the wrong place," she explained. "You shouldn't see lip filler, if it's done well. The lips should just look good. If you can see it, it's not good lip filler."

However, she cautioned that "these are aesthetics concerns" and there are other more serious issues.

She detailed how there are blood vessels in the lip and if they inject into that they can block the blood supply to the skin - causing the tissue to die. It can also travel in the facial blood vessels to the vessels behind the eye and affect vision.

The doctor often has to fix bad fillers, dissolving fillers but not all can be dissolved and sometimes they have to surgically remove it. Currently, the Government is deciding what measures to take to crack down on the cosmetic cowboys after the Tory consultation suggested a traffic light system, dividing procedures up into green, amber and red.

However, she expressed concern that Liposuction is being treated as 'non surgical procedures' which she described as "absolutely an atrocity and dangerous going forward."

She emphasised: "These are surgeries" and urged Wes Streeting and the Government to "keep surgery in the hands of surgeons" and "cosmetic surgery in the hands of surgeons who have it in their scope of training."

Dr Nugent added they need to: "Make it illegal for non-healthcare personnel to carry out medical aesthetic procedures and I'm including dermal fillers in this.

"Make it illegal or impossible to obtain the equipment or products. They are getting them off the internet."