Mom Who Documented Tummy Tuck on TikTok Dies After Alleged Surgery Complications
Rachel Tussey had been planning her tummy tuck for years. The 47-year-old Ohio mom documented every step on TikTok — the pre-op consultations, the preparation, the excitement — sharing her journey with more than 25,000 followers who followed along as she counted down to her surgery date.
Unforunately, she never came home. And the documentation leading up to her surgery is now eerie.
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Tussey underwent the procedure at the office of Cincinnati plastic surgeon Dr. Tork on February 25. In her final TikTok video before going under, she sat in a hospital bed in a surgical gown, radiating excitement. "Please pray. I know it's gonna be great," she said. "I've waited a really long time for this. I'm in good hands. I know God's got my back. Let's do this."
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Her husband Jeremy sat in the parking lot all day waiting for her to finish. At around 5:45 p.m., he got a call to come to the recovery room. On his way in, he passed the surgeon.
"He assured me the surgery went great," Jeremy recalled in a TikTok video posted March 3. "So he was heading home."
What Jeremy found in the recovery room would change everything.
'I Could Tell Something Was Wrong'
When Jeremy entered the recovery room, he noticed the facility was largely empty — locked down for the night, with only a cleaning crew sweeping the hallways. One nurse was with Rachel. A second moved in and out of the room.
Rachel heard Jeremy's voice and responded to his touch. Then a nurse mentioned she had just administered pain medication — .5 Dilaudid and 150 fentanyl. Moments later, Jeremy looked down at his wife.
"Her face is off color, white," he recalled. "I said, 'Rachel.' She didn't answer."
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Neither the nurse nor Rachel responded to repeated calls. Jeremy watched as the nurse attempted CPR, but said it didn't seem urgent. When the nurse grabbed a breathing bag, she placed it over Rachel's face but didn't seal it properly, pumping it once or twice before walking away to retrieve Narcan.
"Her head rolled over," Jeremy said. "I jumped around there and held Rachel's head up so that she could get it sealed."
The nurse administered a dose of Narcan. Then another. Neither worked. The surgeon was called back to the facility. When he arrived, he assessed the situation and told staff to call 911.
An ambulance rushed Rachel to TriHealth Bethesda North Hospital, where she was placed on life support.
"She was without oxygen for over six minutes," Jeremy said, his voice breaking. "I don't know how that happens."
'Somebody Dropped the Ball'
Jeremy said Rachel was declared brain dead that night. The family made the heartbreaking decision to remove her from life support. She is survived by her husband and their three children — Tristan, Alec, and Livi.
"To me, it looks like incompetence," Jeremy said in his TikTok video. "Somebody dropped the ball here."
The family has obtained a lawyer but has not yet filed a lawsuit against the surgeon. In his video, Jeremy also mentioned that he would still be responsible for paying for his wife's procedure.
In the months leading up to her surgery, Tussey was been open about why this procedure meant so much to her. She battled insulin resistance, PCOS, and years of failed diets.
"I'm not doing this for anybody else," she said in one of her final videos. "I'm forty-seven. I still have a lot of life to live. I'm doing this for me."
A GoFundMe has been set up for the Tussey family.