Woman dies after basement butt-enhancement surgery goes bad

A woman has died after a quack surgeon botched a butt-injection procedure in a New York basement before fleeing the scene in her car.

Curvaceous Maryland woman Kelly Mayhew often boasted about her booty online and idolised Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj, New York Daily News reports.

On Saturday she made an ill-fated trip to New York with her mother to a family home with an unlicensed surgery in its basement.

When the surgeon began injecting Ms Mayhew's buttocks with silicone, the 34-year-old patient began to gurgle and her breathing stammered.

Her mother was watching the procedure and rushed to her aid, performing CPR and asking the dodgy doctor to grab the phone and call for help.

But the medical dilettante grabbed her keys and took off.

The mother called police who arrived after the paramedics who performed CPR on Ms Mayhew.

The patient was taken to hospital and pronounced dead.

Police continue to search for the suspect surgeon while an initial autopsy into Ms Mayhew's cause of death was inconclusive.

"Following the examination, we are doing additional studies and also await the police investigation," said spokeswoman for the city medical examiner's office Julie Bolcer.

The basement was rented by a nurses' aide reportedly named Tonya Bedford who was allegedly performing surgeries on women for months.

The mother told police Ms Mayhew had already had five butt enhancement surgeries.

In March this year 29-year-old Gold Coast woman Evita Nicole Sarmonikas died in Mexico while undergoing butt implant surgery after suffering a cardiac arrest during the procedure.