A teenage mum who spent a year in a coma after breast surgery has been allowed home – but doctors fear she may never recover.
In a case that has shocked America, 19-year-old Linda Perez suffered brain damage in the hours after her breast augmentation operation.
She was in a vegetative state for months but has now been released from hospital to be cared for by her family.
However, she is still unable to move on her own and can only say a few words. She has to be kept under constant supervision because of her skeletal weight. She also suffers from bouts of depression because of her condition.
Despite doctors' pessimism, the teen's mum believes Linda can recover because she now no longer gets her nutrition from a feeding tube.
Linda's mum Mariela Diaz told The Miami Herald: "I still have hope because she is alive and she's home."
A tangled row has erupted over who is to blame for what happened to Linda, who is mum to a four-year-old, as her family prepare to sue the clinic for malpractice.
Dr Jacob Freiman, the doctor who performed the $2,800 surgery at The Coral Gables Cosmetic Center, Florida, is calling for an investigation into Linda's medical history because he claims that the girl knew she had suffered complications when she gave birth to her son.
He says that the information was purposefully kept from him in order to keep him from calling off the plastic surgery.
Linda's family's lawyer, Mark Eiglarsh, said getting to the truth of what went wrong will be something for the courts to decide.
He asked: "How does an 18-year-old healthy young lady go in to have a simple routine cosmetic procedure and come out in a vegetative state?"