Woman left fighting for life as fake Botox beautician apologises

The patch over Kaylie Bailey's left eye is a daily reminder of when her beauty treatment nearly killed her.

The 36-year-old mum-of-three from Peterlee, County Durham, had paid Gemma Gray £75 for three "Botox" injections, half of what it had cost on a previous visit - the bargain turned out to be too good to be true.

Within days, Ms Bailey was struggling to see.

Doctors at Sunderland Royal Hospital diagnosed her with ptosis, an eye condition characterised by the drooping of the upper eyelid, and told her to go home to rest.

The hospital trust said that when Ms Bailey was discharged she had been advised to visit her GP if her condition worsened, and it had been explained to her that her symptoms were probably related to the treatment she had had.

It added that botulinum toxicity was a very rare condition "not seen by the majority of doctors during their careers".

But when her condition deteriorated over the following days, Ms Bailey rushed back to hospital where this time she was told she had botulism, a rare but life-threatening condition caused by a bacterium.

By that point, she was one of 28 people to have been diagnosed with the toxic poisoning in north-east England after having anti-wrinkle jabs.

Ms Bailey stopped breathing and required resuscitation.

She spent three days on the Intensive Care Unit and was treated with an anti-toxin.

"I remember lying on the bed thinking 'I'm dying here and I don't want to'," Ms Bailey says, crying as she recalls her experience.

Upon her release, and being required now to wear an eye patch until her eye heals, she contacted Mrs Gray and was told by her it was a "nationwide problem with the product".

"When I went in [to her appointment for the anti-wrinkle jabs], I felt like she was rushing that much it stung, my eyes were watering that much off it," Ms Bailey says.

"I cannot believe she's even dared to do that to people.

"She didn't even know what was in it and we're having to live with what she's done to us.

"I've nearly died because of it."

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