An Ohio mother of three who documented her tummy tuck journey for over 25,000 TikTok followers has died after being taken off life support, her family confirms. Rachel Tussey, 47, entered the hospital for a routine cosmetic procedure on Feb. 25 and never woke up.
Her final video, posted just before surgery, shows her smiling from a hospital bed. “Please pray. I know it’s gonna be great. I’ve waited a really long time for this,” she told viewers. “I’m in good hands; I know God’s got my back. Let’s do this.” The caption read: “#midlifeglowup #mommymakeover”.
Her husband, Jeremy first alerted followers to the tragedy on March 3, describing in agonizing detail how a routine procedure turned into a nightmare. After waiting hours for the surgery to conclude, Jeremy received a call instructing him to return to the recovery room. The doctor was on his way out and allegedly assured him the surgery “went great”.
Inside the recovery room, Jeremy heard his wife calling for him. A nurse joined them and asked Rachel how she was feeling after receiving pain medication. Then everything changed. “Next thing you know, I look down and her face is off color,” Jeremy recalled. He assumed it was normal lack of blood from surgery, he thought. But when they called her name, she didn’t respond.
A nurse immediately started CPR. Jeremy, a construction worker by trade, watched helplessly. “I’m just a dumb construction worker, but I could tell something was wrong,” he said. “But there was no sense of urgency.”
When the plastic surgeon finally returned to assess the situation, his instruction was to call 911. Rachel was rushed to TriHealth Bethesda North Hospital, where doctors placed her on life support. The damage was already done. “She was without oxygen for over six minutes,” Jeremy revealed. “I was told last night that she’s brain dead.”
On March 5, Jeremy made the heartbreaking decision to remove his wife from life support, according to a GoFundMe page organized for the family. Rachel leaves behind her husband and their three children, Tristan, Alec and Livi.
The family has retained a lawyer but has not yet filed a lawsuit against the plastic surgeon, local news outlet WXIX-TV reports. Jeremy is determined to understand exactly what happened inside that operating room. “To me, it looks like incompetence. Somebody dropped the ball here,” he vowed.
A GoFundMe description remembers Rachel as someone “truly full of life” who “loved adventure, cherished her family deeply, and lived as an example of what community and compassion should look like.” It notes that when someone needed help, Rachel was always the first person to step forward.
The tragedy serves as a devastating reminder that even procedures presented as routine carry inherent risks. For one Ohio family, a midlife glow-up became an unthinkable loss.
