Attorney expresses outrage over fallout from 'dirty dentist' case

As the wheels of justice slowly begin moving in the case of a Tulsa dental surgeon accused of countless health violations, the toll in human suffering becomes more clear.

Paul Boudreaux, of the law firm Richardson, Richardson, Boudreaux, Keeling tells KRMG he's representing clients who have suffered terribly, and perhaps fatally, by having been patients of Dr. Scott Harrington.

Thousands of former patients were potentially exposed to communicable diseases at his office, according to city and state health officials.

Harrington surrendered his license in March.

Boudreaux tells KRMG one of his clients was a 30-year veteran of the Broken Arrow Police Department.

He literally had a heart attack while in the chair at Harrington's office, and Boudreaux says they believe its because untrained, unlicensed people were administering anesthetics to him during a tooth extraction.

"They certainly shouldn't have been doing this while he (Harrington) wasn't even in the room, and apparently this has been going on for years with thousands of people," Boudreaux said.

He calls the case "devastating. I mean this doesn't happen in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This happens in a third world country, right?"

He continued, "The whole thing is so aggregious, so unbelieveable, I mean -- it's sickening."

He said he also has a client, a 40-year-old woman, who believes she contracted hepatitis-C from Harrington's office.

She's "probably going to wind up with a premature death, losing her liver to cirrhosis," he said.

And there's more suffering, he added. "I've got a lot of clients who still haven't even got their results back. So they're sitting at home every night agonizing, waiting for the mail to get there every day. It's just a sick existence."

At least seven lawsuits so far have been filed against Harrington.