Student died after beard transplant ‘botched by property agent posing as surgeon’
Mathieu Vigier Latour, 24, travelled to Istanbul for the £1,082 procedure – a fifth of what he would have paid in France – but the operation was a disaster and he tragically died by suicide
A 24-year-old man tragically ended his own life after a botched beard transplant in Turkey, carried out by an estate agent masquerading as a surgeon. Mathieu Vigier Latour decided to jet off to a clinic in Istanbul for the €1,300 (£1,082) procedure – a fraction of what he would have forked out back home in France.
His dad revealed that the business student felt reassured when he saw that the clinic had been given the thumbs up by the Turkish health ministry. But the operation turned out to be a complete nightmare.
During the surgery, 4,000 grafts were taken from the back of Mathieu’s head and moved to his face – but the clinician lost a quarter of them. “When it started to grow out, it looked like a hedgehog. It was unmanageable,” his father Jacques Vigier Latour told BFM TV, via The Telegraph. It comes after a balding man transformed into ‘Megamind’ after experiencing a severe hair transplant side effect.
He described how the beard was uneven, poorly planned, and that hairs were sprouting at odd angles from his son’s face. On top of that, he said Mathieu suffered burns post-op and was struggling to sleep due to the discomfort.
That’s when Mathieu did some more digging into the surgery. He was shocked to find out that the person who performed his procedure wasn’t a surgeon at all – but an estate agent, reports the Mirror.
In a bid to rectify the mess, his family managed to track down a specialist in Belgium who was in the process of correcting the procedure. But the doc concluded that the part of Mathieu’s scalp, where grafts had been taken, wouldn’t recover.
The man reportedly spiralled into post-traumatic shock and developed severe body dysmorphic disorder, a mental health condition where sufferers obsess over perceived flaws in their appearance. “He entered a vicious circle and couldn’t get out,” his devastated dad revealed.
Tragically, just a few months after the initial op, Mathieu ended his own life in his student digs in Paris. His father hopes that by sharing his son’s tragic story, he can highlight the dangers of cheap medical tourism.
“If this testimony could prevent this from happening again and alert everyone, I think that would be a tribute to Mathieu,” he expressed.
This heart-breaking tale follows another man’s claim that he was forced to jack in his job after a hair transplant allegedly left him with massive purple scars on his noggin. Mark Sweeney, 57, reckoned he was promised top-notch treatment at the Merchant City Medical centre in Glasgow city centre, and chose the clinic over others abroad after hearing horror stories of surgeries going pear-shaped.
But his dream of sporting a full head of hair turned into a nightmare when the hair transplant procedure allegedly left him with a large scar across his forehead. He claims that the botched operation left him unable to continue his job as a waiter because he can’t face the public, and now he has to style his hair forward to hide the unsightly marks.
Mr Sweeney, who resigned from his position at Glasgow’s Buttery restaurant, told the Daily Record: “They’ve ruined my life. Absolutely ruined and destroyed my life and I can’t do anything about it.”
Since undergoing the transplant, he’s been grappling with anxiety and depression due to his altered appearance. He’s now on medication prescribed by his doctor.
Mark, who forked out £3,500 for the procedure, says he’s been left with a scar on his forehead and a bald patch on the side of his head where grafts were taken. He detailed: “I’m bald where they took the hair and I’m scarred at the front. I’ve got a hairline that’s low on one side. What I do now is I grow my hair long at the front and I shave the hairline to try to disguise it and cover it up.”
Paul Mulholland, CEO of Merchant City Medical, confirmed that Mark had been a patient at their clinic. Speaking to the Record, he added: “Mark turned up at our office yesterday and was told to leave.”
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