Trending Topics

Minn. teen dies after wisdom teeth extraction

A 17-year-old girl went into cardiac arrest toward the end of the procedure

By Paul Walsh
Star Tribune

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. — With the school year out of the way, Eden Prairie High School junior Sydney Galleger went to the dentist to have her wisdom teeth removed.

Such a normal procedure, particularly for teens, turned tragic. Galleger went into cardiac arrest during the extraction Tuesday. She died Friday.

The diver on the high school swim team and Alpine skier was 17 years old.

Diane Galleger said in a CaringBridge posting that everything was going well for her daughter with the dentist “until the very end, when her blood pressure shot up and her pulse dropped and then she went into cardiac arrest.”

Sydney’s mother said the doctor started CPR and called 911. Paramedics quickly arrived and got her to a hospital, “where more doctors and nurses than I could even count started working on her.”

Once at the University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital, she was stabilized but continued to have seizures, Diane Galleger wrote.

“We still don’t know what caused this to happen, but it’s possibly pointing to an unknown heart condition,” Sydney’s mother said in the posting on the day her daughter was stricken.

The end came Friday, Diane Gallege wrote, when swelling in Sydney’s brain proved overwhelming.

“As we met with a team of Drs. and nurses at 3:00 am, they let us know there was nothing more that could be done,” Diane Galleger wrote. “As you can imagine, that was the most devastating news we have ever received. We want to rewind to Monday, where we had our happy, healthy, funny, beautiful 17-year-old daughter.”

There have been other instances in the United States in recent years of patients suffering cardiac arrest during extraction of wisdom teeth and dying. Among them: a 24-year-old southern California man in 2013 and a 17-year-old girl in Maryland in 2011.

On the day after Sydney Galleger died, members of the Eden Prairie girls’ lacrosse team tied blue ribbons in their hair in honor of their fellow student and took the lacrosse field in Minnetonka and captured their third state championship. They defeated Lakeville South 14-13 in double overtime at Minnetonka High School.

“I was pushing to win for Sydney,” said junior midfielder Kelly Wolfe, who scored the game-winning goal. “I wanted to win it for Eagle Nation.”

———

©2015 the Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

RECOMMENDED FOR YOU