A 3-year old whose mother took him to the dentist for a recommended procedure died during the surgery, according to investigators in Kansas. His mother wants to know why.
After several dental consultations, Nancy Valenzuela took her 3-year-old son Abiel to Tiny Teeth Pediatrics Dentistry in Wichita, Kansas, to have several teeth pulled because of a gum infection. She believed it would be a “simple procedure.”
“We didn’t expect to come out of there without a child,” Valenzuela told KSN-TV.
Valenzuela said although she had inquired about her son, she didn’t know her son was unconscious in the dentist’s office until paramedics wheeled him to the ambulance on a gurney.
Wichita police responded to a 911 call reporting an unresponsive child at the Tiny Teeth office. Abiel died after being rushed to the hospital.
In the police report, the anesthesiologist reported the young patient’s cheek swelling and pulse slowing when the dentist began working on his lower jaw. That’s when the doctor – who said he had never seen these symptoms in a patient without allergies – started CPR.
Related
“It is believed that the child had an unanticipated reaction to medicine provided during the course of his dental procedures,” Officer Trevor Macy told KAKE. Police are not investigating the incident as a crime.
“As a mother, you feel like you failed him because you didn’t do anything to protect him,” she said in an interview with KSN-TV, describing how the loss of her soon-to-be 4-year-old son has deeply hurt his two siblings.
Valenzuela said she is waiting to see what the coroner determines caused her son to die.
Related
LISTEN on the Audacy App
Sign Up and Follow Audacy
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram