An investigative report from our partners at The Dallas Morning News reveals that far more people are being seriously hurt or killed because of mistakes made by their dentist.
"Deadly Dentistry" is the result of an 18-month investigation carried out by Investigative Reporter Brooks Egerton.
“The idea of somebody dying from going to the dentist was pretty unfamiliar to me,” Egerton told NBCDFW in an interview ahead of Thursday’s online launch of his work. “It is no longer unfamiliar.”
According to Egerton’s report, 85 Texas dental patients have died since 2010. During that time, The Dallas Morning News estimates that about 1,000 people have died nationwide — about one person every other day.
That information came only after the newspaper sued the Texas State Board of Dental Examiners and filed open records requests in all 50 states for the right to see the investigative findings made by the board in the wake of the fatal accidents committed by practitioners.
"The laws have been written so that information about patient harm is a secret," Egerton told NBCDFW.
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The investigation began in the spring of 2014 when Egerton learned about the death of a Dallas boy due to oversedation by his dentist.
Salomon Barahona Jr., called "Junior" by his parents, went to see a dentist for the first time in late 2013. The dentist told Junior's parents, Salomon Sr. and Daniela, that their son had four cavities and recommended they see a specialist to have the cavities filled, according to the Barahona family.
That specialist told the Barahonas that Junior actually had 12 cavities and he recommended Junior be sedated so that he could properly treat them.
“They said it’s time to go back, you can’t come to the back from this point,” Daniela Barahona told Egerton. "So she took him from my arms and just walked away with him. That’s the last time I saw him."
According to records obtained by the Dallas Morning News, the dentist gave Junior a sedative cocktail of Demerol, Valium and Hydroxyzine. But the sedative was too strong and he stopped breathing.
The dentist didn't know because he was working on Junior alone and didn't notice the clip that was supposed to be attached to the boy’s finger to measure the amount of oxygen in his blood had fallen off, according to The DMN.
As punishment, the Texas State Board of Dental Examiners penalized the dentist by assigning him three years of unsupervised probation, fining him $3,000 and making him take some remedial course work, The DMN reports.
The dentist closed his Dallas clinic after Junior’s death. Soon after, the dentist reopened a different clinic and is still sedating patients today, according to The Dallas Morning News.
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