Excerpts of Amanda Lawson's Testimony

Testifying for her malpractice lawsuit, Amanda Lawson said that she never met with Dr. David Cheney until the day of her breast augmentation surgery. It wasn’t until the surgery began that she realized that she wouldn’t have general anesthesia, but instead would be awake through the operation. She told the court what happened during the procedure and afterward. Here are excerpts from her testimony: “I lay back on a regular table that they have in the doctor’s office, and he takes a little bottle of Lidocaine and numbs the area, which it doesn’t numb much. And then he begins to create what he calls a pocket.” Her attorney, Brent Savage, asked: When he cut into you, after the Lidocaine is administered, what did it feel like? “I don’t know, it’s—at first, it was, this isn’t real, this can’t be happening. For sure this man is not this evil… Lawson then testified that clinic co-owner Sharon Chavez-Yawn held her while Cheney operated, and the two talked about how long it was taking to do the left breast. He was steadily tugging and pulling on her breast, Lawson said. Then he moved to the right side, as she lay in pain. “By that time, like I said, it’s like, it’s not really happening. This don’t happen. It happens in a horror movie maybe.” As he worked, Cheney was angry, cussing, she testified. “He’s mad because he can’t get the pocket opened up wide enough…I didn’t really—it didn’t really hit me until he said GD. When he said that, I knew it was serious and I was trying to tell him to just forget it, don’t worry about it, I’ll go home. We’ll do it another day. We’ll try something different but I couldn’t talk.” At one point during the surgery, she said, instruments were flung onto the floor. “David Cheney gets mad and takes a drawer from behind him and slings it in the floor. And whatever lands on the floor he picks up and uses on me.” Lawson said after she got home, she slept for two days. When she would get up, warm liquid would drain from under her bra and make puddles on the floor at her feet, she testified. About a week later, she went back to the clinic, where she says Chavez-Yawn assured her that everything was normal and she was told to stay on the antibiotic she had been taking. But the drainage continued and Lawson suffered pain and swelling. As it continued, she saw an attorney, who sent her to another doctor. He immediately hospitalized her and she received IV antibiotics. Her breasts were still draining, she said. “By that point I had to take Kotexes, the thick pads, and double them up to catch the drainage and it was still getting everywhere, couldn’t go anywhere.” She missed a follow-up appointment with Cheney because she was hospitalized. Later, she had a followup appointment with Cheney on a Sunday. “The reason we went over there on Sunday is because the stitch had busted and the one implant had fell and you could see it protruding out,” she said. “…He takes Q-tips and cleans it.” But she is hospitalized again and diagnosed with MRSA, a severe antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection. Eventually, she has a Macon surgeon remove the implants, and then she was referred to an infectious disease doctor. That doctor uses a PICC line to deliver antibiotics because the IV wasn’t enough. The infection continued to flare up, she testified. “If I don’t take antibiotics every month, then I have an infection somewhere…” The jury awarded Lawson $1 million, but she hasn’t been able to collect. Cheney, who was found responsible for $500,000, does not have malpractice insurance. Chavez-Yawn, who was found responsible for $250,000, did not show up for the trial.