Nancy Valenzuela suffered from every mom's worst nightmare. After a routine dental procedure, her 3-year-old son Abiel Valenzuela Zapata didn't make it out of the dentist's office alive.
Abiel, who lived in Kansas, was scheduled to have a procedure done at Tiny Teeth Pediatric Dentistry in Wichita. He was set to have some teeth pulled and was given medication. He became upset over the injection, and Nancy tried her hardest to assure him that he was OK. As far as she and the dentist knew, the pain would eventually go away.
"I told him, 'Papi, everything's going to be OK," Nancy told NBC4. Nobody had any idea that Abiel would be allergic to the medication he was given.
Around three minutes after he was officially sedated, his dentist started working on his lower jawline. Around that time, Abiel's pulse started to slow down. He also had a reaction in his cheeks, which started to swell. Abiel was just one month away from celebrating his fourth birthday, but he died at the dentist despite CPR being performed.
"We didn't expect to come out of there without a child," his mom said. The dental office called 911, and police arrived to take a report on the tragic incident. It's believed that the medication used to sedate him was something Abiel was unknowingly allergic to.
When Nancy saw emergency services arriving at the dentist's office while waiting for Abiel's procedure to finish, she had no idea that they were called for her son. "As a mother, you feel like you failed him because you didn't do anything to protect him," she stated. "I really thought that I made the right choice."
The reason for the appointment was because Abiel had a gum infection prior. Pulling the teeth seemed necessary. By the time his mom reunited with him at the dentist, he had already died. Feeling helpless, she made a promise to her son then and there.
She promised that she'd get to the bottom of what happened. "I couldn't do anything for you, but I will investigate,'" she said. "It's what I told him. It's the only thing I can do and bring awareness." Currently, the death has been ruled as an allergic reaction.
The doctor working on Abiel admitted he's never seen anything like this happen throughout his whole career. The fact that Abiel reportedly had no known allergies before this happened is even more baffling. The news has been especially hard on Abiel's two siblings.
Tiny Teeth issued a statement after Abiel's unfortunate death. "Tiny Teeth Pediatric Dentistry is devastated by the death of Abiel Valenzuela Zapata. We are praying for the family during this time and ask for the community to do so, as well," the statement said, per KWCH. "Like Abiel's family, we, too, want to understand how this tragic event may have occurred."
"Our practice has never experienced an incident like this, and we had no reason to expect this procedure would be anything other than routine," the statement continued. "We would like to thank the EMS first responders who arrived only a few minutes after we called 911. They continued the CPR efforts we had begun and worked feverishly to save Abiel."
Family friend Mariah Cavenee created a GoFundMe page for Abiel's family to help support them during such a devastating time. "Any donations made will go directly to the family, and will be used to help cover expenses that will come up during this hard time," Mariah wrote.
"If you know Nancy and Angel — you know they are the type of people who often go out of their way to help those in need," she continued. "They are humble and are not the type to ask for assistance from others. Please help pay it forward to their family as they have done for so many others."
This news may inspire some parents to seek out allergy testing for their own children. It's possible that Abiel's mother may also want to learn more about the sedative used, as it's very likely that it was something in the sedative that Abiel had an unknown fatal reaction to. This shouldn't have happened to any child, and it's a shame it happened to Abiel.
