Family urges Guilford County DA to review toddler’s death in dental procedure

Outside the Guilford County Courthouse, Er’mias Mitchell’s family asked District Attorney Avery Crump to take another look at the 2-year-old’s death at Valleygate Dental Surgery Center in Greensboro. Nearly a year after the child died, the family says the case is about more than grief now. It is about whether Guilford County’s legal system will press for answers that they believe still have not been fully addressed.

An autopsy report obtained and reviewed by WFMY News 2 says Er’mias died of hypoxic cardiac arrest following endotracheal intubation during induction of anesthesia for a dental procedure. The report says the child was given propofol, vomited, received more medication and then went into cardiac arrest within minutes. The report also lists the manner of death as natural, a detail that has sharpened the family’s push for a new review.

The North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners later said no dental procedure had started before the medical emergency. The board also said no dentist or dental staff administered the anesthesia or sedation, and that those services were provided by other licensed medical providers. Valleygate Dental Surgery Center reopened about two weeks after Er’mias died on July 17, 2025, even as questions continued to circulate about what happened in the room that day.

That leaves a narrow but important set of unanswered questions for prosecutors and regulators in Guilford County. The state’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is tasked with investigating suspicious and unusual deaths, and any renewed scrutiny would likely turn on the full medical record, the autopsy findings, the actions taken when the child vomited, and whether the response inside the clinic met the standard expected when a toddler’s airway and heart suddenly fail. Crump, who is Guilford County’s first female and first African American district attorney, would have to decide whether the facts justify a criminal review in addition to the professional licensing inquiry already completed.

For Er’mias’ parents, the issue is also personal and practical. WRAL reported that the family had traveled from Salisbury to Greensboro for caps on the child’s front teeth, a routine dental need that ended in tragedy. Their attorneys say a civil lawsuit has already been drafted, but the family still wants a direct conversation with the district attorney and a deeper review of how pediatric sedation is handled, what emergency protocols are in place and how parents can know who is administering anesthesia before a child is put under.