Leonard Legal Representing Actress Following Surgical Errors
37-year-old actress and Bridgewater local Christina Castellanos filed a lawsuit against Dr. Andrea Strauss and the Hunterdon Healthcare System in April 2020, claiming that Strauss had utilized dirty needles during her breast reduction surgery in 2018. Castellanos’ attorney, Scott Leonard from the Leonard Legal Group, says that they’re looking to hold Hunterdon and Strauss legally liable for breaching safety protocols that led to Christina’s serious injuries and related damages.
Castellanos, who acted in several episodes of “Orange is the New Black,” “Chase Street,” “Law and Order SVU,” and other TV shows, says that she will never be the same, mentally, ever again.
The Botched Breast Reduction Surgery
It was in May 2018 when Castellanos came to Dr. Andrea Strauss for a breast reduction procedure. She says that she has suffered from various health problems since then and was even hospitalized 30 times because of the recurrent infections she developed from the botched surgery. The actor’s legal team has sent multiple requests to obtain her medical records from the Hunterdon Healthcare Group. But they have yet to receive her records.
After her surgery, Castellanos returned to Strauss a month later to complain about significant scarring and infections. She had to return again in September 2018 to undergo nipple reconstruction surgery. In the lawsuit, the actor claims that Strauss failed to perform the initial surgery properly, resulting in the uneven and asymmetrical appearance of her nipple area. She says that they did not look right because the nipple in her left breast was lower than that of her right breast.
But that was not the only problem. She felt that something was off when she came back for the nipple reconstruction procedure because it was performed in Strauss’s office instead of the surgery center. There were also no nurses around, and she was given insufficient anesthesia. Castellanos was wide awake and could see all the blood during the surgery.
Several months after the two previous surgical procedures, the actor also developed thick scars, which Strauss attempted to treat using injections that failed to work. She received her last injection from the doctor in 2019 and has since consulted with another surgeon to undergo corrective surgery to try and fix the botched breast reduction surgery performed by Strauss.
In addition, Castellanos and other patients of Strauss received a letter in June 2019 from the President of Hunterdon Healthcare, David Skillage. The letter stated that Strauss breached patient safety protocols during her procedures resulting in the patients’ exposure to Immunodeficiency Virus, Hepatitis C, Hepatitis B, and other bloodborne pathogens and infections.
Castellanos says that the trauma she experienced from all the procedures Strauss performed on her and the letter from Hunterdon sent her into therapy. She also says that she has been traumatized for life.
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