GREENSBORO, N.C. (WBTV) -David Mitchell held up his phone and hit record as Er’Mias, his 2-year-old son, played on his mother’s lap.
“You’re such a big boy,” Shardé Sherrill told her son as the family waited inside the Valleygate Dental Surgery Center in Greensboro early on Thursday morning.
Mitchell took the video minutes before Er’Mias was taken back for what his parents understood to be a relatively simple procedure to put in tooth caps.
The video marks the last time the Salisbury family saw him alive.
Greensboro police investigating Salisbury toddler’s death
The trio had just come back from a family trip to New York City. Er’Mias is a ‘miracle’ child: his mother had been told she wouldn’t be able to have children.
Now parents to a healthy toddler, they waited in the lobby as Er’Mias was taken back for his procedure. As they understand it, he was given anesthesia, something they haven’t yet been able to see the medical records to confirm.
As they waited, the parents recall seeing an ambulance pull up outside and then leave. They wondered about the commotion.
It wasn’t until after the ambulance left, and roughly forty minutes after Er’Mias had first been taken back, that parents said a staff member entered the lobby and asked them to come to a separate room with her.
Hours later that evening, speaking with a reporter, Sherrill found it hard to find the words to describe what happened next. Her aunt, a close family member who was in the room when Er’Mias was born two years earlier, described the emotions.
“She facetimed us. When Shardé facetimes us, something is wrong,” Constance McCrae recalled. “She said, ‘My baby’s not breathing.’”
The family said they weren’t told until after the ambulance left, leaving them driving alone to the hospital thirty minutes from the surgery center to find their child. By then, it was too late to say goodbye.
“You sat there, you waited, you never notified his parents,” McCrae said through tears. “You took this baby alone in an ambulance, and tell them they need to go to the hospital? The hell?”
In a statement to media issued on Friday afternoon, roughly thirty hours after the child’s death, Valleygate’s CEO Virginia Jones said they could not respond to specific questions about when parents were notified but would release updates as they could.
“We are heartbroken by yesterday’s tragic events concerning one of our patients,” Jones wrote. “Our thoughts are with their family and loved ones during this unimaginably difficult time.”
Greensboro police told WBTV on Thursday that they were investigating a child’s death at the address for the dental surgery center, but couldn’t provide additional details.
In the statement, Jones wrote that they were actively reviewing yesterday’s circumstances with relevant agencies and would provide updates as appropriate.
“While rare, complications can occur unexpectedly even under carefully controlled circumstances,” the statement said. The company’s full response can be read at the bottom of this article.
Er’Mias’s parents said they were told later that there had been an issue with the anesthesia and his lung. They had asked for but not yet received medical records for the visit, so they couldn’t verify yet exactly what had happened.
He was healthy, and the family said they hadn’t been told of any risk before the procedure.
“This baby was going for dental work — dental work!” McCrae said. “It wasn’t like he was going for open heart surgery.”
A GoFundMe was created to help the family with funeral expenses. If you would like to donate, you can click here.
Deaths from oral surgery relatively uncommon
In an interview on Friday morning, the North Carolina Dental Examiner Board’s executive director confirmed to WBTV that they were investigating the death.
But their investigation may have limited authority, because oral surgery centers are licensed differently than dental offices.
Valleygate Dental operates surgical centers across North Carolina, with a number of new locations set to open soon according to their website.
Valleygate Dental’s ambulatory surgical centers are licensed by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and involve both dentists and doctors, which are licensed by the separate North Carolina Medical Board.
“Our first job as a board is to determine whether the death occurred as a result of bad dentistry, over which we do have jurisdiction, or if it was a result of anesthesia that was provided by the center itself,” said Bobby White, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners. “If that’s the case, that’s not our jurisdiction.”
Anesthesiologists are licensed by the medical board. A spokeswoman for the North Carolina Medical Board told WBTV on Friday complaints and investigations remain confidential unless or until public action is taken.
According to the State Board of Dental Examiners, there have been eight oral surgery deaths in North Carolina in the last thirty years since stricter regulations around anesthesiology were put into place — not including Er’Mias. Most of those deaths have occurred in the last 13 years.
White believes Er’Mias’ death may be the first pediatric death in that era.
In the context of those oral surgery deaths, White estimates that anesthesia is used between 300,000 and 400,000 times a year in dental procedures in North Carolina.
“We mourn with the family,” White said. “Going to a surgical center, thinking everything would be OK and then have it come to such a tragic end — everyone should have them in our thoughts and prayers.”
Full statement from Valleygate Dental Surgery Centers’ CEO Virginia Jones, PhD, below:
About Valleygate Dental Surgery Centers
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