Family members of a Las Vegas woman who died after a botched backroom surgical procedure are suing her unlicensed doctors as well as two businesses they claim share responsibility for the tragedy.
Elena Caro, 42 and a mother of three, died in April of an allergic reaction to anesthesia after undergoing surgery in the back room of Tiles and More at 3310 E. Charleston Blvd. The back room of the business had been leased to the doctors who performed buttocks enhancement surgery on her.
Ruben Dario Matallana-Galvas and his wife, Carmen Olfidia Torres-Sanchez, were arrested at McCarran International Airport in connection to her death as they were trying to catch a flight home to Medellin, Colombia.
They pleaded guilty in August to involuntary manslaughter, conspiracy and practicing without a license and are serving sentences of up to eight years in prison.
A daughter of Caro told police she dropped her mother off at the tile business for the surgery, but discovered the business abandoned and her mother missing when she went to pick her up. Caro was later found several miles away on East Lake Mead Boulevard near Pecos Road, in pain and requesting help, and people in the area summoned an ambulance for her. She then died in a hospital.
Matallana-Galvas, who told authorities he was a homeopathic doctor in Colombia; and his wife, a government lawyer in Colombia, were hit with two lawsuits by Caro’s family members last month in Clark County District Court.
One was filed by the woman’s husband, Oscar Canale, and two of their children, Erik Canale and Oscar Canale Jr. The other was filed by her daughter Janet Villalobos.
Tiles and More and its owners are named as defendants in the suits, as are Sinaloa Beauty Salon and its owners. The suits allege the beauty shop had referred Caro to the unlicensed surgeons.
The family members are seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for claims of wrongful death and negligence.
The suits say the unlicensed surgeons were unqualified to perform the procedure, which involved the injection of a "gel type of substance in six separate injection sites in her buttocks."
Attorneys for Caro's survivors contend the surgeons had failed to determine if Caro was allergic to materials that were injected into her and then "carelessly and negligently failed to timely summon emergency medical help when Elena Caro displayed an allergic reaction to the material injected into her."
The defendants have not yet responded to the lawsuits.
Tiles and More is now out of business, according to the Clark County Business License Department.