The Greensboro Police Department is currently investigating a shocking child death. A two-year-old boy allegedly had an accident while receiving treatment at a local dental clinic and subsequently died after being sent to the hospital.
The deceased was named Ermias Mitchell, only two years old. His family told the media that on a Thursday morning in July, they made a special trip from Salisbury to Greensboro to install the child’s front teeth at the Valley Gate Dental Clinic.
According to the family’s description, Ermias was taken to the clinic for surgery at around 6 a.m., but within an hour, the ambulance and the police arrived at the scene.
The family said that they were not notified by the clinic of the child’s condition until the ambulance took Ermias to the local emergency room. “Can you imagine, as a mother, taking your child to the dentist and not being able to bring him home alive?” The child’s great aunt Constance McRae said with tears in her eyes. She recalled that the child’s mother could only watch the ambulance leave without knowing what happened.
Grandmother Kayla Smith said emotionally that Ermias was the child that the family had prayed for for many years, and now his sudden death has made the whole family devastated. “This is an unspeakable pain. I lost my grandson and my own soul.”
Ermias’ parents David Mitchell and Shad Sherrill were interviewed by WFMY News 2. Both were extremely dissatisfied with the clinic’s handling of the situation and questioned why the family was not informed of the child’s condition in the first place.
“An hour later, I comforted his father and said that the child should be almost well,” Sherrill recalled. “It wasn’t until the receptionist came over and asked me to go into a room that I realized something was wrong.”
What shocked them even more was that the clinic later claimed that they performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the child for 40 minutes. “I asked her, ‘Do you know how long it takes for the brain to be irreversible without oxygen? Why couldn’t you notify us after 10 minutes?’” Sherrill questioned.
According to the police report, at 7:16 a.m. that day, the police received a request for “legal aid” and went to the dental clinic address – 510 Hickory Ridge Avenue to handle it. At present, the child’s death has been filed for investigation. The police have not released further information, saying that the case is still ongoing.
Ermias was supposed to celebrate his second birthday in April this year. His mother said he liked dinosaurs, and his father said he was a smart and energetic child.
At present, the family calls on the public to pay attention to this matter and hopes to find out the truth of the accident as soon as possible and give the child justice.