For Shardé Sherrill, what should have been a routine dental visit turned into the unimaginable. On July 17, she brought her 2-year-old son, Er’mias, to Valleygate Dental Surgery Center in Greensboro, North Carolina, for a simple tooth-capping procedure. Instead of going home with her baby, she left planning a funeral.
Shardé says she and her partner, David Mitchell, sat waiting in the lobby, believing Er’mias was safe in the care of medical professionals. But behind closed doors, her son had suffered severe complications after being given anesthesia. She says no one came to tell her what was happening.
“Because of their poor decisions we didn’t get to say goodbye to our baby,” Shardé later wrote in a Facebook post.
Nearly 40 minutes after he was taken in, an ambulance pulled away from the center — carrying Er’mias without his parents. Shardé says she only learned of the crisis after her son was already en route to the hospital.
By the time she and David drove the 30 minutes to get there, it was too late. Nurses told them his lungs had collapsed, even though he had passed all of his health checks earlier that morning.
To Shardé, Valleygate’s actions were not only negligent, but cruel. She says being kept in the dark robbed her family of the chance to hold their child one last time.
Valleygate’s CEO, Virginia Jones, acknowledged the delay in informing the parents was “painful,” but defended the medical team’s efforts, saying staff did everything they could in the moment.
The North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners later confirmed no dental work had actually begun before Er’mias’ death, and that the anesthesia had been administered by outside licensed professionals.
That explanation offers little comfort to Shardé. In the weeks since, she has led protests outside the dental center, demanding accountability and transparency. The family is still waiting for the results of Er’mias’ autopsy to learn what truly happened.
“My son was my best friend,” Shardé says. “Now I feel lost and lonely without him.”
