Chafin Could Do Free Dental Work For Public

We’ll never know what really happened on June 18, 2006, when a Boone Lake boating accident left one Bristol, Tenn., fisherman dead and another severely injured.

But we do know that dentist Wray West Chaffin II has to pay for an avoidable tragedy that left a wife a widow.

Chaffin has pleaded no contest to negligent homicide, negligent boating and failure to render aid. On Father’s Day 2006, his speedboat collided with a fishing pontoon, killing Wayne Allen Cross, 63, and injuring his fishing buddy, James Clark, 53.

Chaffin did not stop for the accident and told investigators later that he thought he merely had struck a log.

Chaffin’s no-contest plea is not an admission of guilt but simply a nod to the evidence against him. He will never be required to tell the real story of that fateful day, and his attorney will ask a judge today to sentence Chaffin, 41, to probation and then expunge his record after a period of years.

Sullivan County Circuit Court Judge R. Jerry Beck has an opportunity today to administer a unique form of justice while dispelling widespread public fears that a well-heeled defendant eventually would buy his way out of trouble.

Beck should levy some jail time, although in the absence of a criminal record, it’s doubtful that he will seek the maximum two years of incarceration for Chaffin.

Regardless of Beck’s decision on the question of jail time, however, we urge him to recognize a desperate public need in this region and fill it with Chaffin’s chosen profession and skills.

Chaffin should perform years and years of pro bono dental work for indigent patients.

If the region’s two Remote Area Medical clinics have taught us anything it’s that thousands of our citizens don’t have access to basic medical care, including dental care.

Witness this summer’s RAM clinic in Wise County, Va., where more than 1,000 people were turned away.

Thousands of others were treated, however, including 1,233 dental patients who had 3,857 teeth extracted and 1,628 teeth filled by volunteer practitioners.

The judge should require Chaffin to volunteer at both of our area’s RAM clinics each year and to use his private practice in Gate City, Va., to treat patients without the means to pay him or to buy insurance.

This is not our idea. The credit goes to Virginia A. Gunn, a Bristol, Tenn., registered nurse who volunteers for the Crossroads Medical Mission.

Gunn wrote the judge a compelling letter on June 19 and urged him to put Chaffin’s dentistry skills to work for the public good while humbling him for the irrevocable damage he has done to two families. Gunn noted that dental care is the No. 1 request at Healing Hands, a free clinic for the working uninsured.

“I have heard patients threaten to pull their own teeth and have seen those who have tried, only to have the teeth break into pieces,” Gunn wrote. “I have seen what happens to self esteem before, and after, ugly cavities have been filled. The smiles and tears of happiness are wonderful to see, and hearing them say, ‘Now I can find a job,’ is rewarding.

“… I just feel that by having professionals do something that would be a solution to an area wide problem, [it] would give victims families something positive after the tragedy they have endured.”

We wholeheartedly endorse Gunn’s proposal.

Requiring Chaffin to do pro bono dental work will not bring back Wayne Allen Cross, but it might bring some measure of solace to his widow, Betty. In her darkest hours of grief, she might find some comfort in knowing that hundreds of less-fortunate people were helped as a result of her husband’s death.

Justice requires nothing less.