As has been covered before on teethremoval.com, one complication that can and has occured during wisdom teeth removal is the possibility of a thermal burn on the face and a permanent scar. See the wisdom teeth removal complications page for more information. As part of the nice deadly dentistry piece by The Dallas Morning News, a case of this occurring to a young woman in California is highlighted. The story is from Brooks Egerton titlted “Beating the System: Nevada disciplined dentist for deaths, but it didn’t matter in Texas,” and written December 9, 2015.
The case is of a young woman entering her senior year of high school who was scheduled to have four wisdom teeth extracted in July 2008. The woman was accompanied by her mother during the procedure as is typical in many cases and then was brought out in a wheelchair with only one tooth extracted. The assistant said to her mother
“Oh, by the way, she accidentally was burned a little on the face.”
What happened during the surgery is that a dental hand-piece became overheated and the drill contacted the woman’s lip, gums, and chin during the surgery. This left a severe facial burn with permanent scarring. The woman endured teasing from her high school classmates
“…about being the Joker’s cousin…”
This reference was about the Batman character the Joker and his scarred face. The woman attempted to sue the dentist and ended up settling the lawsuit out of court. Over time the scarring improved but it was permanent. Even so the woman may have been left having to deal with potential mental health issues brought on by the teasing about the scar on her face and required therapy.
The FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) had actually issued a notice warning dental professionals about burns from electric dental handpieces more than six months prior to this case occurring. The FDA suggests that electric dental handpieces are properly maintained, encourages the training of personnel to understand how to maintain dental handpieces, suggests following their method for tracking maintenance and service, and warns against the use of worn drills, burs, and poorly maintained electrical dental handpieces. Unfortunately for the woman in this case, she was left with a permanent scar and this lead to repeated teasing and unwanted nicknames.
If you are considering having your wisdom teeth extracted and don’t want to become the next scarface check out the controversy page at http://www.teethremoval.com/controversy.html to learn more about if you should extract or retain your wisdom teeth.
The above image is from Pixabay.
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