Man busted for drunk dentistry

• Tweet

LINDENHURST, N.Y., Jan. 23 (UPI) -- Police in New York state said they arrested a dentist whose assistant said he had been drinking on the job for months.

Robert Garelick, 57, was arrested at his Lindenhurst office Monday after his assistant, Kimberly Curtis, and dental hygienist, Dina Fara, allegedly caught him making mistakes on the job while drinking vodka from a sports bottle and alerted police, the New York Post reported Wednesday.

"I observed Dr. Garelick give [a] patient Novocain, an anesthetic for pain relief, in the wrong place in the patient's mouth. [Then], I observed Dr. Garelick looking for the cavities on the right side of the patient's mouth, but the cavities were on the left side," Curtis told police.

Police said Garelick initially told then he had drank a few beers with his lunch, but later changed his story to say he had not had any beer and had been drinking vodka all day.

Garelick was charged with misdemeanor reckless endangerment and released on his own recognizance.