A Lancashire woman has been handed a £14,500 settlement following a dental ordeal which caused 'long-lasting facial disfigurement'.
Claire Shorrock, a 38-year-old teaching assistant and mother, was on the end of "multiple dental errors", ending with her being hospitalised during a routine root canal procedure.
The horror story began in October 2020 when Ms Shorrock recounted an "overwhelming bleach smell" and shooting pains shortly after her tooth began to be drilled.
Ms Shorrock says the feeling was "absolutely unbearable" and "she couldn't stop screaming."
Her face quickly began to swell, and Ms Shorrock was sent to hospital in an ambulance.
She was then kept overnight where doctors attributed the incident to a severe burn reaction from sodium hypochlorite after the dentist involved at Deepdale Dental Centre, Preston, forgot to give her a preventative guard.
Ms Shorrock said: “I had to go home the next day with my face still extremely swollen, which was the worst thing ever.
"My young children, one of whom is autistic, found my face terrifying and I was reduced to wearing a Covid mask at home to hide the swelling.
“My top lip remained numb for a couple of weeks, but once the numbness wore off I was left with constant pain from infection which reduced me to only eating slimming shakes, and my lip has been permanently altered since."
The root canal incident was part of a chain of recurring issues Ms Shorrock had at the practice she attended from 2008 to 2020.
She said: "In 2019, I had persistent issues with one of my upper teeth where a filling fell out and then the replacement crown also failed, and I experienced regular infections in the tooth.
"This began to make me worry about the quality of the treatment I’d received.”
Ms Shorrock contacted the Dental Law Partnership after the events, which said its analysis revealed "multiple dental errors" at the practice, and had the treatment of decay been better she wouldn't have needed a root canal in the first place.
The Fulwood woman had two teeth extracted following the ordeal, with a further two likely needing to come out in future.
Three years after the incident Ms Shorrock was awarded the £14,500 out-of-court settlement, although neither of her dentists admitted liability.
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