Jaw pain can be a symptom of a cardiac event. Combined with Mott’s recent stroke history, Dr. Choubal began to suspect the pain might not be dental-related at all. “As we were chatting, he revealed that the pain was going down his left arm. Then he told me that the pain was going down both arms.” For Dr. Choubal, that detail set off alarm bells. “Everybody comes in with a toothache,” he says. “This was the first time somebody told me their tooth pain was going into their arms.” Jaw pain can be a symptom of a cardiac event. Combined with Mott’s recent stroke history, Dr. Choubal began to suspect the pain might not be dental-related at all. “The classic signs of a heart attack are jaw pain and pain down the arm,” he says. “The only symptoms he didn’t have were nausea and sweating.” Although Mott had a visibly damaged tooth that clearly needed treatment, Dr. Choubal made a difficult decision. “I said, ‘I don’t think I can freeze you. I don’t have a good feeling about this,’” Dr. Choubal says. “The emergency doctor came in and said, ‘We’re transporting you to Calgary,’” Mott says. The almost 100-kilometre ambulance ride from Banff to Calgary was a blur. “It was just like, what’s going on?” Mott says. “You’re laying there in the back of the ambulance and everything’s happening so fast.” In Calgary, physicians discovered severe blockages in Mott’s coronary arteries. “When I talked to my cardiologist and the doctors at emergency, they all said the same thing,” Mott says. “If Dr. Choubal didn’t catch it, there was a very good chance I wouldn’t be here today. They told me that my dentist saved my life.” Specialists treated Mott by placing a coronary stent, and Mott went home to Banff. The Long Road Home Months later, Mott returned to the dental office to finally address the tooth that had started it all. During the appointment, he mentioned a new symptom: severe fatigue and shortness of breath when climbing stairs. Again, Dr. Choubal became concerned. “I told him, ‘What if this is the same thing?’” He again postponed dental treatment and urged Mott to return to his cardiologist. Further testing revealed that the stents had become blocked. Mott would need coronary bypass surgery. “I got lucky,” Mott says. “I had an excellent medical team.” The procedure was extensive. Surgeons removed a vein from his left leg, from above the knee to the ankle, and used it to bypass blocked arteries in his heart. Only afterward did Mott fully understand what he had been through. “Thank goodness they didn’t tell me everything before,” he says with a laugh. “If they would’ve told me exactly how they do the surgery, I would’ve been terrified.” After leaving Calgary, Mott returned to Banff expecting that the worst was behind him. Instead, a new challenge began. Doctors told him he needed to walk to rebuild his strength, but even that felt overwhelming. For months, every movement required effort. “I was shuffling around in my pajamas and slippers,” he says. “That was about all I could manage.” At night, he slept in a motorized recliner gifted to him by his employer because lying flat was too painful. The chair helped him stand up when his chest and leg were too weak to support him. “Send Him to the Hospital” For Mott, the recommendation to go to the ER came as a shock. “I was just numb,” he says. “What’s going on?” At first, he wasn’t convinced that he needed emergency care. “He just wanted relief from the tooth pain,” says Dr. Choubal. “He was disappointed. He’d been dealing with it for a while.” Still, Dr. Choubal persisted. He contacted the Banff hospital and spoke directly with the emergency physician. “I told her my concerns,” he says. “She didn’t hesitate. She told me, ‘Send him down right away.’” “When I got into emergency, they knew I was coming,” Mott says. “They put me right through. No waiting.” Tests revealed elevated troponin levels, a marker of heart damage. Doctors determined that he had suffered a heart attack and arranged for an ambulance transfer to Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary. 25 Issue 4 | 2026 | Issues and People
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