The Brief
- Texas patient safety advocates tell FOX 4 the death of 4-year-old Aithana Rodriguez-Arriaga at a Fort Worth dentist office in April was entirely preventable.
- 48-year-old Chrishelle Hemphill was arrested in July after an investigation into a series of errors in her attempt to revive Rodriguez-Arriaga after a dental surgery.
- Nonprofit patient safety group Texas Watch says it will fight for Rodriguez-Arriaga’s family in court, and push for legislation that prevents such deaths from happening again.
FORT WORTH, Texas – Activists are looking at a child’s death at a Fort Worth dental office earlier this year and hoping it spurs the state to pass stricter legislation to make sure such tragedies never happen again.
The backstory:
Investigators determined Chrishelle Hemphill, 48, was responsible for the April death of 4-year-old Aithana Rodriguez-Arriaga at Cuddle Kids Dental in Fort Worth, and her arrest affidavit details a series of errors in the child’s death.
The affidavit states Rodriguez-Arriaga did not wake up following a procedure on her tongue performed by Hemphill on Apr. 1. An unusually high amount of meperidine (demerol, an opiate) was found in the child’s blood system, which a medical examiner said would have been toxic for an adult.…