Ontario boy with world's longest baby tooth wonders: 'How did it fit into my gums?'

Story Transcript

Luke Boulton was blown away when he first saw the massive tooth his dentist pulled from his mouth.

It was about the length of a loonie, he said. Even the dentist said it was the longest tooth he'd ever seen in his two decades on the job.

"I was amazed and also confused," the nine-year-old from Peterborough, Ont., told As It Happens host Carol Off. "Like, how did it fit into my gums like that?"

The tooth is 2.6 centimetres long, enough to earn Luke a spot in Guinness World Records for longest "milk tooth" — a.k.a. baby tooth — ever extracted. 

"I thought it was just a tooth, a plain old tooth, but then when I realized that I was the longest tooth, that was so amazing," Luke said. "It felt really good, and I told everybody at my school."

The tooth's record-breaking status was confirmed last week.

Luke's mom, Alanna Boulton, says the tooth was looking pretty huge even before they saw the whole of it. 

It had been sticking out of the front of Luke's mouth for a while, getting increasingly crooked and affecting the boy's speech, she said. The family dentist did some X-rays and confirmed that an adult tooth was growing out behind it. 

Since it didn't seem to want to fall out on its own, they decided to have the dentist extract it on Sept. 17, 2019. Luke was eight years old at the time.

"That was his first time having, like, needles and stuff in the mouth, and he was a champ — a total champ," Boulton said. "I'm very squeamish, so I looked out the window and held his hand while he was getting it done."

A record you can sink your teeth into 

It was Luke's sister who first suggested it might be a record breaker. The Boulton kids get copies of the Guinness Book of World Records every year for Christmas, so they're quite familiar with the concept.

They measured the tooth and did some Googling. Sure enough, Luke's tooth was longer than anything else they could find. 

When it came time for Luke to leave the big chomper under his pillow for the tooth fairy, he wrote her a note asking her to please not take it. When he woke up, his tooth was still there, along with $10. 

Then the family began the arduous process of applying to Guinness World Records. It took more than a year of measurements, photographs, paperwork and confirmation from the family dentist before they finally sealed the deal last week. 

During that time, Luke says he had trouble convincing some of his classmates that he had the world's longest baby tooth. Only his friend Jordan took his side. 

"I took some pictures. I showed them. They didn't believe me," he said. 

But now he has irrefutable proof. When his Guinness certificate arrives in the mail, he plans to hang it on the wall and display the tooth alongside it. 

He says he's also looking forward to getting his his hands on the next copy of the Guinness Book of World Records.

"I'm going to sign it," he said, adding that he'd be happy to sign copies for his most ardent fans, including his teachers and his mom's friends. "A lot of people have asked."

Written by Sheena Goodyear. Interview with Luke and Alanna Boulton produced by Chloe Shantz-Hilkes.