The attorney for a Fort Worth dentist accused in the death of her 4-year-old patient says the office will not reopen on Friday, despite a sign on the door indicating it will. NBC 5 continues to seek answers in the tragic death of Aithana Rodriguez Arriaga on April 1, 2026. Questions also rema in surrounding the lapse of time between the child’s death in April and the suspect’s arrest in July. Dr. Chrishelle Hemphill, 48, is charged with injury to a child, accused of neglect that led to the child’s death during a procedure for tongue-tie. Hemphill’s attorney, Michael Heiskell, tells NBC 5 he intends to hold the government to its burden of proof and for the facts to be tested in the courtroom and not in the press. An Austin safety advocate who has read the affidavits filed in the case says this tragic case exposes the need for multiple changes to Texas law. The sign on Cuddle Kids Dental Cary’s door reads, ‘Unfortunately, we will be closed for the dates of 7/16 – 7/23.’ The message does not share that the closure came after Fort Worth Police arrested the owner, Dr. Chrishelle Hemphill, in the child’s death. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the death ‘accidental’ due to ‘meperidine (Demerol) toxicity,’ finding a lethal dose of the pain medication in her system: 793 ng/ml. Hemphill reportedly gave the child meperidine 15 minutes before the procedure to ‘calm her nerves,’ and investigators determined Hemphill regularly used meperidine with pediatric patients for sedation purposes, according to charging documents. The child was given three sedation meds along with nitrous oxide gas, but ‘was simply given too much meperidine,’ the documents state. The medical examiner stated the amount of this medication in the four-year-old’s system would have been toxic even for an adult and suspects Arriaga was given a double dose. Ware Wendell is the executive director of Texas Watch, a non-partisan nonprofit in Austin that has been advocating for safety and justice issues at the state capitol for over 25 years. “When you read the law enforcement documents, it seems that this was entirely preventable,” said Wendell. “It is shocking to see how this little girl’s life was taken and we have to change our laws in this state to make safety job number one and protect precious lives.” Affidavits filed in the case detail alleged failures and mistakes that were ‘appalling’ to medical professionals consulted by authorities. Hemphill is accused of failing to properly monitor her young patient’s breathing by not having an anesthesiologist present and not having proper monitors during the procedure and in the crucial recovery period when the girl reportedly lost consciousness. The victim’s mother, who does not speak English, says she was not allowed to be in the room during the procedure and that when she was allowed in, she reports seeing Hemphill placing a popsicle on the girl’s lips trying to wake her. Hemphill is accused of misinterpreting signs Arriaga was suffocating and instead tried to administer an AED and did chest compressions before and while calling 911. What’s more, Hemphill is accused of administering the wrong reversal drug during the medical emergency. Instead of administering Narcan (for the opiate meperidine), Hemphill is accused of administering Flumazenil (a reversal agent for benzodiazepines). Dr. Hemphill did self-report the patient’s death to the Texas State Board of Dental Examiners, as is required. The agency then launched an investigation; an investigation that did not include the Fort Worth Police Department. According to FWPD, it wasn’t until June and only when the girl’s mother took the results of the autopsy to the police department that their Crimes Against Children unit learned of the incident and launched a criminal investigation. Meanwhile, Hemphill reportedly kept working with children (as is allowed by the state board.) But this allowance is not sitting well with parents of other patients, like sisters Cheyenne Mahanna and Hevan Pittman, who say their daughters underwent similar procedures by the same dentist in the days and weeks that followed, albeit without any problems. They now want to advocate for a change to laws, “maybe change the law that either they have to stop practicing pending investigation or they at least have to disclose to you that something happened and they’re under investigation for X, Y, Z reason,” said Mahanna. Especially they say, after a FWPD search warrant carried out weeks later on July 2 uncovered concerning practices including finding several syringes used for pulling liquid sedatives in a cup that still had varying amounts of syrup in them, according to the search warrant. The detective states that when he asked about this, he was told that ‘if a patient doesn’t take all of the sedative, they will keep it there for the next patient.’ When police consulted another dentist about this practice, he was reportedly ‘appalled,’ stating this is not just very unsanitary but could cause issues with dosing. The detective also noted a potentially vital clue during this search, stating ‘Midazolam, a benzo, and meperidine, an opiate, both clear liquid medications, were kept in the same box and it was a benzo reversal med that was given to Aithana by Hemphill, not an opiate reversal med such as naloxone/Narcan which is what Aithana had toxic levels of in her system.’ A staff member was unable to show the detective where Narcan was, which he noted ‘because I believe they did not have any on site.’ When asked about the department’s investigation timeline, FWPD shared that neither the hospital the child was rushed to and was later pronounced dead, nor the board of dental examiners contacted the department. However, the police detective says that the initial call to the dentist office was called in as a medical call, which could explain the lack of communication. Neither the state nor the ME’s office has responded to NBC 5’s questions about this assertion. We also do not yet know whether there was a breakdown in communication somewhere, what protocols were or were not followed, and whether any potential delay in communication led to a delay in Hemphill’s eventual arrest. But the concern is not lost on the police detective, who told NBC 5, ‘I tried to move as swiftly as I could on this one, knowing that Hemphill was still practicing, and according to the board, I did not have a timeline as to when her license would be suspended. I was simply told she was being allowed to practice during the course of their investigation. ‘ Hemphill’s arrest came on July 15, the same day as an emergency hearing where the state board heard evidence in the case and issued a temporary license suspension for at least 30 days. “Yeah, we had breakdowns at every single phase here,” said Wendell of advocacy group Texas Watch. Asked what he sees as glaring problems that require swift action by the state, Wendell stated: “First of all, we need to make sure that everyone is trained to recognize signs of respiratory distress, that if a patient is suffering respiratory distress that the correct procedures are followed, the correct medication is given to help to revive them. We need to makes sure that our regulators are watching our doctors and dentists closely, that facilities are being inspected. If there’s a problem. That they swarm in and make sure that everything is safe. And if it’s not, they need to shut those offices down because if we have a dangerous doctor in the state of Texas, think how many patients they see every day and how quickly that harm can be spread. And so here there was a delay after this little girl’s life was lost,” he said. “We need to make sure that life is not cheap in the state of Texas. Our civil justice system is broken here when it comes to patients. Life is cheap in Texas. Lives are capped basically at $250,000 when it come to non-economic damages, which is what you have with the loss of a child, right? They don’t have a paycheck. And so to think that a human life is only worth $250,000 in this state is frankly disgusting. We have to change that law so that we value life.” If Hemphill would like to open her dentist office, the active license suspension would not bar her from doing so. However, there are limitations on what duties she can and cannot perform. The emergency order states that while she can perform some administrative tasks like referring patients, Hemphill SHALL NOT delegate any clinical tasks to any employee, and SHALL NOT allow any employee to practice any work outside their permitted duties.’ Hemphill has not responded to NBC 5’s requests for comment. Her attorney, Michael P. Heiskell, provided NBC 5 with the following statement today: “This is a heartbreaking tragedy and our condolences are with the family. At the same time, allegations contained in an affidavit are not proof. As a reminder, Dr. Hemphill is presumed innocent and we intend to hold the government to its burden of proof as the facts are tested in the courtroom and not in the press. In the meantime, my team and I are in the midst of conducting a thorough review of the available evidence and will make any additional public comment as necessary when that process is completed.” ...read more read less