Under the Ice

“I’m telling you, Charlie, this tooth of mine is just killing me. I’ve got to do something drastic or I’m going to go stark raving bonkers!”

Quick to sense the extent of his patient’s upset, the medic attempted to calm the senior sonar technician by adopting his best chair side manner.

“Easy does it, Stan. Just settle down into the chair and relax.

Though I’ve never actually extracted a tooth before, I’ve seen it done in the clinic a number of times and it didn’t look all that difficult. So just hang in there, buddy, and check out the scenery while I make a quick consultation.”

Stanley Roth took a series of deep breaths, and following the medic’s advice let his stare wander to the series of cutouts taped to the wall before him. Starting on Miss January, he attempted to lose himself in the buxom, sensuous centerfolds that had been put up to give a whole new dimension to the field of dentistry.

With the sonar technician thusly occupied. Pharmacist Mate Charles Krommer nervously picked up a manual entitled, The U.S. Navy Guide to Emergency Dental Surgery. The St. Louis native had expectations of becoming a full-fledged M.D. one day in the future.

His plan was to enroll in premedical studies at St. Louis University, where he also hoped to attend med school. To finance such an expensive endeavor, he’d enlisted in the Navy’s college plan.

After completing basic in San Diego, Krommer had been accepted into the Fleet medical program. He completed an intensive six-month course in which he learned a full range of skills including first aid, pharmacology, radiology, and elemental surgical techniques.

For an entire week, he worked as an assistant in a dental clinic, where he acquired knowledge of such basics as treating an abscess and how to temporarily fill a cavity. Yet actually taking out a tooth was a whole different ball game, and he couldn’t keep his hand from shaking slightly as he turned to the chapter marked, “Extraction.”

With the help of a fold-out diagram of the mouth, he identified the suspect tooth as being the lower left mandibular first bicuspid. He breathed a sigh of relief upon noting that this particular tooth had only a single root, and decided since it was slightly loose already, it shouldn’t be that difficult to remove. On the next page he found a list of the items he would need to facilitate his efforts. They included Xylocaine, a dental syringe and needle, a straight elevator to remove the gum from the bone around the tooth, a lower universal anterior forceps, and a dozen or more four-by-four cotton sponges. Only when he was armed with these items did he turn his attention back to his patient.

“Well Stanley, here it goes. I want you to open wide and turn your head slightly to the right.”

The sonar technician willfully obeyed these simple instructions, and Charles Krommer initiated step number one — the administration of the anesthetic.

With the syringe, he proceeded to inject that portion of the gum that surrounded the tooth. As a kid, needles had always scared the dickens out of the pharmacist’s mate, and he found himself more frightened than his patient as he carried out this far from pleasant task.

A wide, relieved smile turned the corners of the medic’s mouth as he pulled the empty syringe out and his patient awkwardly mumbled.

“Hey, Charlie, it finally stopped hurting!”

A bit more confidently, Krommer proceeded, according to the manual, to take the straight elevator and remove the gingival tissue from the tooth. He then utilized the lower anterior universal forceps, clamping it securely to the tooth. Taking a deep breath, he yanked on the forceps with a slight rotating upward movement, and, unbelievably, the tooth came right out of its socket! Before he could cry out in triumph, the blood started flowing. Here the cotton gauze sponges came into play. After instructing his patient to bite down on them, Krommer waited. In approximately five minutes the bleeding would stop, hopefully. Only then would his first venture into the fascinating world of oral surgery be completed.

Back in the sound shack. Seaman Lester Warren was completely oblivious to the historic operation that had just been concluded in the Defiance’s sick bay. Though his prayers were certainly with Petty Officer Roth, he had no time to let his thoughts wander. For the myriad of wondrous sounds that were currently streaming into the headphones were unlike any he had ever heard before. The Texan was able to identify the distinctive crackling cries of shrimp, the tremulous, vibrating barks of several species of seal, and the high-pitched clicks and mournful moans of a herd of passing narwhal.

Since this was only Warren’s second Arctic cruise, many of these noises were still new to him. Under Stanley Roth’s expert guidance, his last patrol in these waters had been a great learning experience, and today Lester readily applied his knowledge during his colleague’s conspicuous absence.