On August 15, at a residence in Rafael Uribe Uribe, Bogotá, Yenifer García, 33 years old, passed away after receiving anesthesia prior to the third session of a tattoo on her back. The Attorney General’s Office took over the investigation to clarify the facts in the home procedure.
Sebastián Gómez, the family’s lawyer, told Citytv that the person who administered the drugs was a nursing assistant and not an anesthesiologist. Although the police identified those involved at the scene, they were released by judicial order while the investigation proceeded as a homicide case.
In an interview with Conducta Delictiva, Jonathan Cantor, the victim’s husband, explained the decision to resort to sedation to complete the tattoo.
Cantor explained that his wife had been working with the same tattoo artist for nine years. However, when starting an extensive design two months earlier, the pain caused the session to be suspended.
In his statements to Conducta Delictiva, Cantor recalled his wife’s words when pausing the process: “No, no, no, I can’t take it. I can’t stand the pain and nothing, don’t do any more. I’m strong with needles and enduring tattoos, but my body just can’t take it anymore, my mind can’t take it.”
“I think the last session was about two months ago,” he specified, noting that all the tattoos she had gotten were done at her place of residence.
Due to the physical discomfort, the family sought options to “numb the area” and contacted, through a relative in the United States, Juan Yair, a local resident who performed aesthetic procedures.
“My wife started contacting to get anesthetized, she inquired about local anesthesia, which is the area where the tattoo goes,” he recalled and mentioned that his “friend” recommended a man she knew because “he did liposuctions at his house, he even did a ‘lipo’ on her cousin” and charged 600,000 pesos for the anesthesia.
Cantor stated in the cited podcast that the fee was, in fact, financed by the acquaintance abroad. Although local anesthesia was initially agreed upon, days before the procedure, intravenous administration was decided.
When asked in Conducta Delictiva about the service, Cantor quoted the words with which the person involved promised it would be done: “Don’t worry, you will be conscious at all times (…) You will be normal, don’t worry, you will be normal. You will feel sleepy, but you will still be normal.”
The accused, according to the couple, planned for the anesthesia to last “approximately two hours or so.”
The timeline of Yenifer García’s death: the moment she worsened
According to Cantor, on August 15, the procedure started at 9:00 a.m. with the tattoo artist and at 9:30 a.m. the person in charge of sedation arrived, with the couple’s two daughters present.
The woman, according to the minors’ testimonies, requested two musical themes and asked to offer drinks to the workers.
The drugs were administered intravenously with two medications. “There was no serum or anything, just one injection into the vein, directly. The girl saw that and started giving more medication from other syringes. Then the tattoo artist started tattooing and my daughter went out to make the herbal tea,” he explained.
Minutes later, the music stopped and the tattoo artist came out asking for help. In Conducta Delictiva, Cantor recounted the tattoo artist’s words upon noticing the victim’s lack of reaction: “Come, help me turn her over because she won’t respond. When we turned her over, her eyes were already white, let’s say, her eyes were lost.”
The daughters called emergency services, receiving instructions via video call while the ambulance took 40 minutes. According to the testimony, the accused tried to “resuscitate” her, however, the girls “could not feel her pulse.”
It was less than an hour after the tattoo started when the situation worsened. “When I was working, my sister-in-law’s husband called me around 10:15: ‘Jennifer has worsened, man. Jennifer is not responding,'” he said.
After that call, the man said he went to the residence and, upon arrival, noticed there were “paramedics everywhere and the tattoo artist going up the stairs to the street and I asked: ‘Tell me, is my wife okay?’ Then he was crying, holding his head and said: ‘Go up, go up, go up’.”
Cantor recounted that at that moment there were doctors “performing a strong resuscitation.” A nurse, according to what he told Conducta Delictiva, approached the alleged anesthesiologist, who was still in the house: “Tell me, what did you administer?”
To the question, the victim’s husband heard him answer “Ketamine. He only said that name” and then stated the amounts of the product administered: “He said first two and then five, and she (the nurse) said: ‘How so? That much?’ and he said: ‘No, two and then three’.”
In the midst of the situation, the couple stated that their daughter found “a hidden syringe” in the bathroom and that on the bed “was the medication he was injecting her with.” Regarding the procedure and the drugs administered, the man said about “20 minutes passed after he administered” the anesthesia before she stopped responding.
Subsequently, the CTI conducted the corpse inspection and ordered the release of those detained, as “a bad procedure was being carried out.”
What did the Health Secretariat say about the case? This is what they revealed about the accused
For its part, the District Health Secretariat told EL TIEMPO that after verifying the information in the National Unique Registry of Human Talent in Health (ReTHUS), the entity confirmed that the man under investigation does not have the professional training required to perform anesthesia.
In a document sent to this media outlet, the agency stated that the individual “is registered as a Labor Technician in Nursing Assistance since July 14, 2016; therefore, he is not authorized to administer sedation drugs nor perform functions proper to an anesthesiology specialist.”
Likewise, the Secretariat specified that Colombian regulations (Law 6 of 1991, Decree 780 of 2016, and Resolution 1732 of 2026) stipulate that only medical specialists in anesthesiology can apply deep sedation grades III and IV, while technical or nursing assistant staff lack legal authorization to inject anesthetic drugs.
Similarly, the District Health Secretariat explained that “the use of drugs such as Ketamine or Midazolam without medical evaluation, monitoring, or adequate clinical conditions represents a life risk. These drugs can cause respiratory depression, cardiovascular alterations, loss of consciousness, seizures, or cardiorespiratory arrest.”
The entity added that any anesthetic procedure requires enabled clinical infrastructure, life support equipment, and trained professionals to respond to medical emergencies.
Likewise, the entity pointed out that private homes are not subject to supervision nor have sanitary approval. Regarding this, it was emphasized that “currently there is no law regulating the use of anesthetic drugs in tattoo or piercing procedures. District Agreement 103 of 2003 establishes general sanitary guidelines but does not contemplate the use of drugs nor home practice.”
LAURA NATHALIA QUINTERO.
LAST NEWS EDITORIAL.
