A blundering plastic surgeon's botched boob job lead to the death of a teen patient who suffered such severe brain damage she couldn't even smile.
Dr Geoffrey Kim, 52, confessed he failed to contact emergency services for five hours after Emmalyn Nguyen, 18, suffered a cardiac arrest while under the knife in Colorado.
The jury heard from the doctor's defence team, who tried to pin the blame on nurse Rex Meeker, who reportedly gave her a fatal concoction of medicine, including enough fentanyl to stop her heart.
Kim swerved the more serious charge of attempted reckless homicide but was found guilty of attempted reckless manslaughter and obstructing a telephone over his failure to contact 911.
The 52-year-old, who was visibly distressed in court, will learn of his fate on September 8.
While he could escape with probation, he also faces three years in prison.
Nurse Meeker had also faced manslaughter charges but managed to get off the hook after offering testimony to support the prosecution's case against Kim, 9news reported.
Both Kim and Meeker have already paid out $1million each to Ms Nguyen's family in a civil wrongful death suit.
Though Meeker was forced to rescind his license to administer anaesthesia, he still has a license to practice medicine, despite the young woman being left braindead and unable to speak or walk.
Speaking to KDVR in December 2019, Ms Nguyen's parents, Lynn Fam and Sonny, said that their beloved daughter had just graduated from high school and wanted breast implants to help bolster her self-image.
Over several months, the 18-year-old dutifully saved up enough money so she could afford them.
The teen, who was said to be in "good health" at the time, was left unobserved for around 15 minutes and then found turning blue when a nurse returned to the room.
As the series of events that led to her death played out in surgery, Ms Nguyen's mother sat outside in the waiting room, completely unaware of the serious situation her daughter was in.
At one point, Lynn claimed Kim came outside to tell her she wouldn't be able to check on her daughter post-surgery.
The doctors told her: "She's doing fine and she's young, maybe that's the reason why she's taking longer to wake up."
On the arrival of emergency responders, they desperately tried to revive Ms Nguyen using CPR, but despite their best efforts, they couldn't rouse her into consciousness.
She was left with a devastating brain injury and was unable to carry out basic tasks like walking, talking, or even feeding herself, and had to be fed with a tube and have an oxygen machine inhale for her.
Her family arranged for her to be taken into a nursing home where she had access to care around the clock.
Arapahoe County Sheriff's Investigator Travis Stewart said: "'The investigation has taken more than two years to complete and involved dozens of interviews and search warrants.
"Our hope is that this will be the beginning of bringing justice and a sense of closure to Emmalyn’s family," he added in an interview with the New York Post.
In the weeks leading up to her death, Ms Nguyen reportedly showed signs that she might have been on the mend. At times, she could smile and was considered medically stable, according to CBS Denver.
The Nguyen family added that it was Meeker who failed to properly administer anaesthesia and that Kim did try to resuscitate their daughter.
In a 911 call played at court, Meeker tells the operator "We've estimated a Glasgow score of 6 or 7", which is the upper end of the test of whether a patient is in a coma. Anything from three to eight indicates comatose.
According to state records, this was the first disciplinary action taken against Kim, while Meeker was sued in 2009 after a woman met a similar fate to Ms Nguyen, sustaining brain damage during a breast implant operation.
