Mum, 29, died during butt lift she saw advertised on Instagram

A trainee beautician who was ‘paranoid about her body’ died after travelling to Turkey for a butt lift operation, an inquest heard.

Leah Cambridge, 29, paid over £6,000 for the procedure, which reshapes the buttocks by transferring fat from areas including the stomach and back.

The controversial operation is the deadliest type of surgery, but Wakefield Coroners Court was told the mum-of-three, from Leeds, had seen it being promoted on Instagram and was unaware of the risks.

Her fiance, Scott Franks, said that the surgeon who performed the butt lift told him the procedure was a ‘guessing game’ and that on this occasion he ‘injected the fat too far into the muscle and it entered her veins.’

He travelled to Turkey as soon as he received the news and said Dr Uckan’s ‘exact words’ were: ‘It’s a matter of life and death when you are doing it.’

Mr Franks claimed the surgeon appeared ‘nervous and scared’ when they met and told him: ‘It’s a guessing game, you can’t see where you are going into.’

The surgeon said in a statement that he had performed the procedure ‘in the region of a thousand times’, with no complications like those suffered by Miss Cambridge.

Dr Lisa Barker, a consultant histopathologist for Leeds Teaching Hospitals, said the young mum died after fat entered her circulatory system and eventually blocked the pulmonary artery to the lungs.

Mr Franks said his partner had saved thousands of pounds for the operation after he refused to pay for it and admitted he was ‘unhappy’ when she put down a deposit through Elite Aftercare, a company which acts as a go-between linking clients and surgeons.

Choosing to stay at home and look after their children while his partner underwent the procedure, he said he became panicked after searching Google for information and discovering an article on fatalities resulting from the surgery.

The court heard how Mr Franks’ grief was compounded when his solicitors received a letter from Elite falsely claiming Miss Cambridge had died after taking ‘illicit drugs’.

Asked about his reaction to his partner’s death, Mr Franks said: ‘You don’t think it’s real, and I still don’t now.

‘You never expect something like this to happen to yourself.’

Miss Cambridge flew to Turkey with her mum Theresa Hall on August 26 last year to have the operation.

Miss Hall said that after her daughter was taken down to theatre, she fell asleep, and was woken by a member of staff who said there had been ‘a complication’ during the operation and that the patient had died.

The grieving mum broke down in tears giving evidence at the hearing.