July 21,2010
Lambton County OPP say they stopped a big rig driver doing some driving dentistry along Hwy. 402 on Wednesday.
Const. John Reurink told the Sun Saturday it’s the first time he’s ever heard of a driver being pulled over performing dental surgery.
“I’ve never heard of this sort of thing occurring before,” Reurink said, adding he has stopped drivers doing their make-up, reading a map or talking on a cellphone. “Somebody doing an amateur tooth pulling? That’s a first.”
Reurink said it all started June 30 when an officer was on Hwy. 402 in Warwick Township, near Sarnia, and a passing driver pointed him to a tractor trailer being driven “all over the road.”
The officer found the eastbound rig and pulled it over.
Cops determined the 58-year-old driver was driving so poorly because he was trying to pull out a tooth while he was driving.
“The driver was very forthright with the officer,” Reurink said.
The amateur dentist of a driver had rigged a string around his hurting tooth and then tied the other end to the roof of the cab, police said.
“One good bump and the tooth should come out,” police explained.
Turns out the “one good bump” likely did come along at some point.
“The evidence of his efforts were nearby,” Reurink said.
When the driver was stopped the officer found a bloody tooth and a string lying next to him.
Strangely, police say the road down that way isn’t that bumpy and was recently resurfaced.
“He may have been better off on a sideroad,” Reurink said.
Police won’t be releasing the driver’s name because he’s charged under the Highway Traffic Act, not the Criminal Code, and they figure he’d be “continuously bombarded” by media trying to talk to him about his stunt - which would likely be more of a headache than a toothache.
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- msaks@ectts.com
