The mother of a 9-year-old girl who died after she was given anesthesia and underwent dental surgery at a California practice has filed a lawsuit against the practice and several dentists, claiming medical malpractice.
Itzel De Jesus, the mother of Silvanna Moreno, filed the suit on December 29 in the California Superior Court in San Diego against Dreamtime Dentistry Dental Group in Vista, CA; Dr. Ryan Watkins; Dr. Kyung Lee Boen; and several other yet-to-be-named defendants.
De Jesus, who is seeking compensatory damages, as well as costs and expenses, claims that errors involving anesthesia led to her daughter’s death, according to the lawsuit.
In the suit, De Jesus claims that her daughter was placed under anesthesia by Watkins on March 18, 2025, for a dental procedure performed by Boen. Following the procedure, the third grader was monitored in recovery at Dreamtime and discharged to her mother 45 minutes later.
When Silvanna was discharged, her mother claims that her daughter appeared to be in an almost “comatose-like” state, “unsuitable for discharge,” according to the lawsuit.
The girl was driven home, placed in her bed, and monitored. A couple of hours later, Silvanna's brother noticed she had stopped breathing and the paramedics were called. Just four hours after the dental procedure, Silvanna was pronounced dead at a children’s hospital in San Diego.
Her cause of death was ruled as “methemoglobinemia in the setting of recent nitrous oxide administration,” according to the county medical examiner. Methemoglobinemia is a rare blood disorder that affects how red blood cells transport oxygen to cells and tissues, and the condition can be inherited or occur when given certain medications.
Contributing conditions to Silvanna’s death were the administration of dexamethasone, glycopyrrolate, hydromorphone, isoflurane, ketorolac, midazolam, ondansetron, propofol, and sevoflurane, according to the medical examiner.
The lawsuit states that if methemoglobinemia had been diagnosed post-procedure, complications and death could have been prevented by supplementing the patient’s oxygen and administering methylene blue.
“Due to her rapid and inappropriate discharge, Silvanna’s Methemoglobinemia went undiagnosed and thus untreated, causing her to slowly suffocate,” according to the lawsuit.
Furthermore, video surveillance of Silvanna at discharge showed an unconscious child being wheelchaired and lifted into her mom’s vehicle. A physician at the children’s hospital, where the child was pronounced dead, watched the video and said the “discharge was ‘entirely too somnolent to be discharged to me ... is arousable but cannot maintain wakefulness,” according to the suit.
“But for the over-administration of the anesthesia and/or the failure to properly monitor Silvanna prior to her premature discharge this awful tragedy would have been avoided,” according to the lawsuit.
