Botched ‘Orgasm Shot’ Ends in $800K Payout to Employee

San Diego, CA (WorkersCompensation.com) – The employee of a California spa has been awarded $800,000 in her suit against her employer for shots that were designed to give her incredible orgasms but left her in pain instead.

Jaime Herwehe, an esthetician at B Medical Spa and Wellness Center, said she was one of two employees given the “O-Shot” by the spa’s owner, Dr. Nadine Haddad. According to court documents and testimony, Haddad wanted to test a new service at the spa designed to improve sex drive and give “oh my God” orgasms.

The shots, injections of platelet-rich plasma taken from the client and administered directly into their clitoris and vagina, were supposed to be life-changing. But, documents said, Haddad needed to practice. She asked her employees to volunteer.

Herwehe said the shot was far from what was promised. With another staffer holding her vagina open by hand, Herwehe was injected with a local anesthetic by Haddad, sometimes using her iPhone to shine a light on the procedure. Unaware the anesthetic had expired three years before and offered no numbness, Haddad injected Herwehe’s PRP into her clitoris.

“It was beyond excruciating,” Herwehe said in court testimony. “The most excruciating pain in my life.”

The pain caused Herwhe to pass out on the floor and, according to one witness, suffer a possible seizure. Since then, she said in her lawsuit, she’s suffered from vaginal numbness.

“After the botched O-Shot procedure, plaintiff was unable to have enjoyable sexual relations with her partner,” her lawyers wrote. “Plaintiff and her boyfriend of almost eight years and the father of her daughter broke off their longtime relationship because of the lack of intimacy and plaintiff’s change in mentality towards sex.”

Herwehe sued Haddad for $25 million in damages, claiming she never gave consent for the procedure, and that she wasn’t told of its risks beforehand. Her suit was heard the first two weeks of April in San Diego Superior Court. Herwehe claims Haddad, and her husband, Mark Khashram, inflicted medical battery, failed to get her consent, failed to tell her of the risks, and then fired her 42 days later when she refused to post-date and sign a consent form.

On Friday, the jury awarded her $800,000 for medical negligence and medical battery, but found that there was no malice or fraud in Haddad’s action, and denied awarding her any punitive damages.

A juror in the case, Michael, told the Times of San Diego, that the jury balked at the fact the attorneys never called a doctor to testify to Herwehe’s claims.

“If they had had a therapist … that said she was being treated for all the anxiety or PTSD because of that — or if they had a doctor that examined her and said yes she has numbness and sensitivity … the award would have been a lot greater,” he told the Times.

In their response to the suit, Haddad and her attorneys had said that Herwehe “had the express knowledge of the risks and hazards set forth in the Complaint, as well as the magnitude of the risks and hazards, and thereafter knowingly and willingly assumed those risks.”

Additionally, they said Herwehe aggravated her injuries through “failure to use reasonable diligence to mitigate them,” that Herwehe’s consent was both express and implied, and that “no healthcare provider shall be liable for professional negligence or malpractice for any occurrence or result solely on the basis that the occurrence or result was caused by the natural course of a disease or condition or was the natural or unexpected result of reasonable treatment rendered for the disease or condition.”

In court, Haddad testified that she was told Herwehe was “fine” with the procedure, and was told that she had signed consent. While she acknowledged using the expired lidocaine on both Herwehe and another employee Jessica Nieto.

Haddad testified Nieto did not proceed with the actual O-Shot because “it was so painful… she asked me to stop.”

Herwehe said after Nieto’s procedure, Evelyn Hernandez-Cardenas, a colleague assisting Haddad, looked “nervous, very uncomfortable.” Haddad encouraged Herwehe to go forward with the procedure though, saying it was the “greatest treatment ever.”

Herwehe said Haddad pushed forward even after the “excruciating” lidocaine shot. Once Haddad gave Herwehe the shot, Herwehe testified, she blacked out.

“I couldn’t even speak – it hurt so bad,” Herwehe said, noting that Cardenas was out of breath, shaking and crying.

Cardenas helped Herwehe to her feet when she felt she would pass out. When she woke up later, she said, Haddad told her she’d passed out for less than a minute. Cardenas later told Herwehe she’d suffered a “two-minute seizure.”

Herwehe said she later texted Haddad about whether or not she needed to see a doctor, and Haddad said, no, suggesting instead that she needed more fluids.

When the other employee, Nieto, was asked if she’d given written consent before the procedure, she said instead it was verbal consent. She said she was asked to sign a consent form later, on May 11, 2021, the day before Herwehe refused and was fired.

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