A prize-winning male model has told how he nearly died during a liposuction op trying to lose the pounds he’d piled on eating chocolate.

Dieter Padar, 50, a Mr Sports Germany winner, had turned to sweets to calm his addiction to nicotine after giving up smoking.

But when he piled on six kilos (13lbs) he took to surgery to get his figure back.

Padar, who runs the charity group Padar Humanitas, said: “I thought liposuction was a routine procedure.

“So many friends have had liposuction.”

But the EUR 13,000 (GBP 11,504) op turned into a nightmare when his liver was apparently ruptured during the procedure on 25th September.

Padar, from Berlin, said: “At 9am, I went to the operating room.

“I woke up a day later in the evening in the intensive care unit at Virchow Hospital. I can’t remember anything.”

His horrified sister Monika, his next of kin, was contacted by medics who told her he was close to death.

Padar said: “Shortly after 5pm the hospital contacted her. She was told I probably wouldn’t survive the night. They said I was dying.”

The model was later told that his liver had been injured three times during the procedure, without the surgeon apparently noticing.

Hospital medics say Padar suffered internal bleeding due to the torn liver, which caused internal bleeding.

He added: “My whole stomach was filled with blood.”

Padar, who spent eight days in hospital recovering from the op, said: “The doctors at Virchow saved my life. I am so eternally grateful to them.

“God didn’t want to take me to him. He has other plans for me.”

Now, says Padar, he plans to sue the cosmetic surgeon and the liposuction clinic.

The clinic has not commented on the allegations, reports local media.