Calf implants hobble male model's life

Devito filed a malpractice lawsuit a little more than a year ago in San Mateo County Superior Court against Mills-Peninsula Medical Center and two area surgeons alleging negligence and fraud after post-surgery complications left him with virtually no calf muscles and unable to work.

A summary judgment hearing scheduled for May 10 has been moved to May 28 involving the hospital and Dr. Michael Norris, the surgeon who removed the implants from DeVito's legs. A trial date for Aug. 19 has been set for Dr. Robert R. Brink, the plastic surgeon who inserted the silicone implants. A complaint has also been filed against Hanson Medical, Inc., the manufacturer of the implant that fell apart while taking it out.

DeVito, 30, was a global portfolio trader for Nikko Salomon Smith Barney when Brink performed the surgery on March 28, 2000. Since then, he has suffered from compartment syndrome, an affliction that can lead to tissue death, said his attorney, Randall Scarlett. Compartment syndrome happens when fluid build up causes pressure in the leg. Instead of swelling outward, the pressure and fluid swell in, cutting of blood supply to the leg. To alleviate this, the compartments must be cut open in a bilateral fasciatomy. No longer modeling, no longer in Japan, he now lives with his family on Staten Island in New York City.

After an emergency surgery to remove the implants the day after they were inserted, DeVito's medical costs have grown to at least $1 million, Scarlett said. His health insurance did not cover treatment in the United States, he added. DeVito was between jobs at the time of the surgery, and he hasn't worked since. He had just signed a contract with Merrill Lynch that would have paid him between $250,000 and $300,000 a year. Though he can walk now, DeVito is likely to be wheelchair bound for rest of his life, Scarlett said because of further deterioration to his legs.