A Fort Worth dental office at the center of a criminal case involving the death of a 4-year-old patient appears to remain closed on Monday, July 27, after a dentist was arrested on July 15.
The closure comes after Fort Worth police arrested Chrishelle Hemphill, 48, in connection with the April death of a young patient. Hemphill is charged with injury to a child causing serious bodily injury.
A notice posted on the front door of Cuddle Kids Dental Care last week indicated the office would be closed from July 17 to July 23. Multiple calls to the dental office seeking comment from WFAA went unanswered, calls returned an automated message stating they are busy with a patient or taking another call.
The practice’s website appeared to have been taken offline. It was not immediately clear whether the website was temporarily unavailable or permanently removed.
According to the Texas State Board of Dental Examiners, Hemphill’s dental license status is currently showing as an “enforced suspension,” which is defined by the board as “a heightened level of disciplinary action.” According to the TSBDE, the suspension may be enacted for up to years, and a “licensee may not practice while under an Enforced Suspension.”
WFAA has reached out to the TSBDE for more details on the enforced suspension.
Fort Worth dentist charged after fatal procedure
The arrest stems from an April 1 incident when Fort Worth Fire Department crews responded to Cuddle Kids Dental Care in after receiving reports of an unresponsive child.
According to an arrest affidavit obtained by WFAA, the girl’s mother brought her daughter to the office for a frenotomy, or tongue-tie, procedure performed by Hemphill.
After the procedure, staff told the mother the child was not responding and would not wake up, the affidavit states. The girl’s mother told investigators she saw Hemphill place a popsicle on the child’s lips in an attempt to wake her, but the child remained unresponsive.
The girl was transported to a Fort Worth hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.
The Tarrant County Medical Examiner ruled the child’s death accidental due to meperidine toxicity. According to the arrest affidavit, investigators determined there was a lethal amount of the opioid pain medication in the girl’s system. Court documents state the child received roughly double the appropriate dose.
An arrest warrant was issued July 15, and police later took Hemphill into custody. She was released from the Tarrant County jail on a $10,000 bond.
Following the girl’s death, a fundraising campaign was created online to help her family pay for funeral expenses and return her body to Mexico.