With no dentist in town, Yukon man desperately tries a DIY fix using pliers

There arefew things tocompare withthe pain ofa toothache.

And that's why one Dawson City, Yukon, man recently decided to take matters into his own hands when he found himself in terrible painwith a dental emergency and no residentdentist in hisremote town.

"My filling fell out and my tooth broke in half," Mike Najmanexplained.

The pain was terrible, and he realizedthe broken tooth hadto come out.

But the nearest dentist was a six-hour drive away, in Whitehorse. That's a long and expensive trip, especially in pain, so Najman decided he'd instead be his own dentist and usesomething that had worked for him before: a setof pliers.

He told CBC News he pulled one of his teeth 12years agoand that itwas an easy one to pull. He figuredif he could do it once, he could do it again.

Najman realized he didn't have the right sort of pliers though, so he took to social media to ask if anyone in town had a different sethe could use.

"It was so painful," said Najman. "I decided that if I could get the right pliers, I could do it by myself."

He was wrong.

Despitehis best efforts with the newpliers, he couldn't get the tooth out.He decided it was time to drive to Whitehorse to seek professional help.

That's when Najman hit another challenge it was a Friday night, and he knew he'd have to wait until Monday to see a dentisteven for an emergency procedure.

"On Sunday morning, I was driving to Whitehorse," he said. "Monday morning, I was driving around [to] offices in hopes that somebody would take me the same day. And they did."

Najman said the third dental office he went to got him in and extracted the rest of his troublesome tooth.

Dental office in Dawson,but no dentist

This ordeal was particularly frustrating for Najman as he knows that this procedure might have been handled locally at the Dawson City hospital.

"Five or six years ago," Najman explained,"I used to work for Bishop plumbing company and we actually set up the dentist office in the hospital.

"There is a whole dentist office and I never heard about that office being used."

In an email, a spokesperson for the Yukon Hospital Corporation confirmed there is a "specially designed space" for dental care at the Dawson hospital, and that it's been used "from time to time" when the Health department brings in a visiting dentist.

Najmantold CBC News that he thinks if there is a space for a dentist, there should be a dentist utilizing the space.

He said a single trip to Whitehorse to see adentist costs him around a thousand dollars. If there were a dentist in town, Najman figures his own out-of-pocket costwould be cut in half.

Dawson resident Helmut Schoener, a retired dentist,feels the same as Najman.

Although retired, Schoener said he would perform emergency dental work on residents in need, and that he approached the Yukon government about doing that out of the local hospital.

He said the government declined his offer.

"I really feel sorry for the guy," Scheonersaid of Najman's ordeal.

"There are no services basically in outlying communities, and they have to pay out of their own pocket nowadays to go and travel to Whitehorse. It wouldn't have to be that way," he said.

CBC News asked the department ofHealth and Social Services for an interview about dental services in Dawson,but nobody was immediately available.