WHEN Sophie Hunt, 34, flew to Turkey for cosmetic surgery last March, she thought she’d come back looking like ‘a million bucks’.
Instead, the mum of two sadly passed away two days after her operation – and her family are still looking for answers.
Aimee Hunt appeared on the Today Show to talk about her beloved sister Sophie, who passed away in March last yearDamien McFadden
CollectsSophie flew to Turkey to get liposuction and a tummy tuck – her family are still searching for answers about her death[/caption]
Her sister Aimee Hunt, 37, from Northampton, appeared on This Morning to talk about Sophie.
Speaking to hosts Dermot O’Leary and Alison Hammond, she said doctors didn’t tell her that her sister passed away until hours after it had happened – despite her repeated demands about her sister’s welfare.
Aimee recalled her sister’s frame of mind in the days before she went to Turkey for surgery.
She said: “Her words were she was going to come back a million bucks.
“That was it, no one was telling her any different.”
Aimee said their mum in particular was really unhappy at the thought of Sophie getting the surgery.
“We all were worried but I just wanted Sophie to be happy,” Aimee recalled.
But Sophie was ‘adamant’, and sure that she and her friend had picked the right clinic after doing their research.
She even showed her sister ‘before and after’ pictures of procedures on the clinic’s Instagram, which Aimee admitted “did look amazing”.
Sophie flew out to Turkey in March 2022 and had a tummy tuck and liposuction, paying £3,963.
Her sister said she “went silent” after the operation: “I just presumed she was asleep, she’d had major surgery.”
But Aimee said she didn’t hear anything from the doctors or clinic that treated Sophie.
She only became aware something was wrong after receiving a call from Sophie’s friend Danielle, telling her to “come out” immediately.
Aimee recalled “panicking, throwing stuff in a bag” and frantically looking for the next flight to Turkey.
She received a call from the clinic 20 minutes later but they wouldn’t give her much information, other than saying Sophie was “OK but not alright”.
Aimee assumed that meant there was still hope her sister would be fine and clung to that on her flight to Turkey.
When she got to the clinic the next day, Aimee was taken to a side room and told Sophie had experienced cardiac arrest.
She asked to see her sister, only to be told she couldn’t because of Covid restrictions in Turkey.
Aimee was then told her sister had had 90 minutes of CPR and there was a possibility she could be brain dead – she was told to prepare for the worst and ‘pray’, she recalled.
Aimee dropped her bag off, still not aware what exactly was going on with her sister – but when she returned to the hospital after 30 minutes, she was told her sister had passed away.
She revealed: “I said I wanted to see her because I needed to.
“So I saw her, which was just horrific, and I had a feeling at the time, I can remember vaguely thinking that she didn’t look like someone who had just died.
“It had been no more than an hour.”
Back in the family room the doctor came back in and held Aimee’s hand before dropping a huge bombshell.
She went on: “He held my hand and said ‘I haven’t been honest with you.
“Your sister had already passed away before you got here.”
He thought they it would be better if they waited because she’d had a long journey, the doctor explained.
In reality, Sophie’s Turkish death certificate shows she died at 9.25am in Turkey — 7.24am UK time — three hours before Aimee even boarded the plane.
Sophie’s friend Danielle – who had a tummy tuck and liposuction at the same time – told The Sun in May that she had collapsed and died two days after her operation.
Aimee told This Morning that the family was still searching for answers a year later and had still not been given an explanation for Sophie’s cause of death.
Aimee told Dermot and Alison: “I think my sister, and me as well, were naive in thinking ‘everything’s going to be fine’. Why think like that? Any surgery involves risk.
“She wanted that body so badly and now her children haven’t got a mum.
“I hope [my sister’s story] makes somebody think. You never think it’s going to be you or your family.”
Though she survived the surgery, Sophie’s friend Danielle told The Sun: “I still have dreams that I’m stuck there in the hospital.
“I should be grateful because I’m alive but often I wish Sophie had made it instead of me.
“I know now that flying abroad for cheap surgery simply isn’t worth it.”
The mum-of-two suffered necrosis after her own op and requires reconstructive surgery to correct the damage caused by the operation in Turkey.
But she said she is too scared to go back under the knife.