A Toothache

A healthy, young Sacramento truck driver dies suddenly of - a toothache:

He was driving a truck route from Truckee to New York last Tuesday when he started to feel pain in the lower left side of his mouth, said his wife, Nataliya Kondratyuk. He pulled over in Oklahoma to see a dentist, who diagnosed an infection and prescribed antibiotics.

The pain subsided at first but then worsened, and Vadim Kondratyuk called his wife several times while driving to complain about the tooth. He made his delivery in New York, but his mouth was uncomfortably swollen and he couldn’t make the long drive home alone. His brother flew to New York to escort him back to Antelope where Nataliya, 22, was anxiously waiting with their 2-year-old and their 11-month-old.

On the way, Kondratyuk’s breathing became labored and he grew pale, Nataliya said. His brother rushed him to a Utah hospital, where he was placed on oxygen and then flown to a larger facility in Salt Lake City. Doctors there prescribed stronger antibiotics and put him on dialysis, but the tooth infection had spread to his blood and lungs, she said. She flew to his bedside and was able to say goodbye before he died on Monday morning.