Knocked Out Tooth Splinted The Day Of The Accident

Knocked Out Tooth After Healing Period Is Restored By Dr. Gangwisch With Cosmetic Bonding

In my dental career, I have had the opportunity to assist two people who have had a tooth knocked out at a sporting event. The second one was during a baseball game that I was coaching. My left fielder ran at fullspeed right into the outfield fence. He was down on the ground while the ball was in play, then while I was running out to check on him (it was a high school field, so I had to run quite a ways to get to him), he got up and came to me with something in his hand. It was his front tooth. It turns out that of the ten foot sections of the cyclone fence, he would decide to choose the few inches of pole to collide with. Needless to say, when it came to tooth versus pole – the pole won. There were no facilities at this field (it was serviced by a Port-A-John), I had him roll the tooth around in his mouth to clean it. Then, after asking his parent’s permission, I reinserted it back into the socket. He handled it very well for a 14 year old because I could tell he saw stars when I put it in. After the game, I took him over to my office, opened up the tooth and placed medicine inside and then splinted it to the surrounding teeth with braces. Later I did a root canal on the tooth and removed the braces then and rebuilt the chipped tooth. Now his smile looks as good as new.

In my dental career, I have had the opportunity to help two individuals who knocked their teeth out during sporting events. The first one was during a soccer match. I was watching a buddy of mine play in an adult soccer league when all of a sudden with a couple of minutes left in the game, a fight broke out near the far sideline. Once that was broken up, they completed the game. Afterwards, I noticed that all of the players from both teams were over by that sideline looking on the ground. I thought that someone had lost a contact lens. At that time, my friend, knowing that I am a dentist, came over and told me that a player had had a tooth knocked out during the fight and was wondering if I could help. As I walked across the field, the player came over holding his tooth in his hand. Since we were standing in the middle of the field with no water available (the field was only serviced by Port-A-Potties), I had him roll the tooth around in his mouth to clean the dirt off of it. Then, crunch time came. I took the tooth and firmly inserted it back into the socket. I could tell that it smarted quite a bit but I don’t normally carry a syringe full of Novocaine with me. There certainly weren’t any tears. There was no way that he was going to let his teammates think he wasn’t tough. I instructed him to see his dentist the next day. When I checked with him later in the week, he was doing just fine. His dentist did a root canal for the tooth.  A year later, I asked my buddy how his teammate was doing and he said that his tooth was doing just fine. Happy endings are always nice.