I had been sent home from surgery with only one working lung

I am naturally someone that gives a lot of grace to people for being human and making human mistakes. I want to preface this with the fact that this was MY experience and I recognize that it may just be a one-off, however I think it's important that people be able to make informed decisions when picking their surgeons who will have their life in their hands.

I had a breast reduction and liposuction surgery with Dr. Shermak on November 5, 2018. During the course of my surgery, a needle went into my lung and popped it like a balloon. When I was waking up from my surgery, I heard the technicians and nurses around me commenting on how they'd never seen someone stop breathing before while on the table. Coming out of the anesthesia was hard for me, it took a very long time, and I was struggling to breathe the whole time. They sent me home with an incentive spirometer and told me to call if I continued to struggle. I really didn't know what to expect from surgery. I expected to be in pain, and boy was I from the lipo, but I also was struggling really hard to catch my breath and didn't know why. It took me two days after surgery to realize that this just wasn't normal. I originally thought it was just the breast reduction, the tightness of the binder/bra contraption I was bound in, but the fact that I couldn't catch my breath and felt like I was constantly panting had me call the office and they instructed to come in. I was unbound from the binder/bra thing, and she looked me over, then told me she couldn't really see anything wrong. She rebound me, and instructed another person (nurse?) to come in and listen to me breath. The nurse (?) gave Dr. Shermak a significant look and said "I would send her to the ER, just in case." So I went to a hospital nearby that Dr. Shermak had surgery rights to. After a HORRIBLE ordeal in the ER, they put me in a bed for the night as the first option to treat the collapsed lung was to force oxygen into me in the hopes it would reinflate. I won't speak about the hospital ordeal too much, because that wasn't Dr. Shermak's fault, per se, but I will say that the medical professionals there were SHOCKED that I had been sent home from surgery with only one working lung. The first morning I was in the hospital, I was woken up by Dr. Shermak bursting in my room to check my vitals and talk about what the plan for helping me was, and then that was it. She didn't really do much more after that. My lung did eventually get reinflated and I got home to heal up, which seemed to be an ok process.

Now, the reason I know it was a needle that popped my lung is because I went to a respiratory specialist and got myself checked out. I was very freaked out by the event, and scared that it would happen again.

So, that was my initial experience with Dr. Shermak. I would not recommend her to anyone, based on MY experience, but I understand others have had great experiences. It's why I chose her in the first place, because I didn't read anything really negative about her. I want everyone to have a safe and good experience, and hopefully she learned from my ordeal and won't do it again, but I think it's important people know about it. Good luck to everyone!