Pathologist details death by silicone injection

The 20-year-old British exotic dancer who died after getting silicone injections from "Black Madam" Padge Victoria Windslowe had 25 to 40 times the amount of the liquid's key chemical element than is usually found in people, a pathologist testified Wednesday.

That level of the naturally occurring element silicon is usually fatal, Delaware County Medical Examiner Frederic Hellman told the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury hearing Windslowe's third-degree murder trial in the Feb. 8, 2011, death of Claudia Aderotimi.

Hellman, who performed the autopsy on Aderotimi, said the liquid silicone injected to enlarge her buttocks moved through her body into her brain, lungs, liver, and stomach fluid. The silicone, he said, severely damaged her lungs' ability to absorb oxygen and damaged her heart.

Furthermore, the silicone that lodged in Aderotimi's brain almost certainly caused her sudden mental disorientation, described by witnesses after she was taken from the Philadelphia airport hotel where the buttocks-enhancement procedure was performed to Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital.

"Once neurological symptoms appear, it is 100 percent fatal," Hellman told the jury.

Hellman said his research showed that even people who have never had silicone injections or implants show trace levels of silicon, the element that is the main component of silicone liquid.

Windslowe, 43, is also charged with aggravated assault for injections she gave 23-year-old stripper Sherkeeia King in February 2012 at a "pumping party" at an East Germantown home.

King was hospitalized, vomiting blood and struggling to breathe. Doctors found that silicone in her buttocks had spread through her bloodstream to her heart and lungs.

Medical experts have testified that liquid silicone is never injected in typical cosmetic procedures because of its tendency to migrate from the injection site.

Though Windslowe had no medical training and the silicone she used was an industrial grade meant to lubricate machines, her lawyer said she will testify that she believed what she did was safe and that she was not criminally motivated.

Hellman testified that 75 percent to 80 percent of people who just have breathing problems after silicone injections recover if they quickly get medical care.

Two witnesses who survived injections from Windslowe testified earlier that they were left with severely impaired breathing, and continue to worry that the silicone inside could still spread and kill them.

Lankenau Hospital internist Arka Banerjee, who treated King, testified that there is no way to remove silicone injected into the body and said King's breathing has been permanently impaired.

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