[jason]

The Mayo Clinic advises that a well-stocked first aid kit can help people respond effectively to common injuries and emergencies. They feel that people should keep at least one first-aid kit at home and one in their car. Among many other items in the kit, the Mayo Clinic recommends including a Save-A-Tooth emergency tooth preserving system – the only first aid device that can store and preserve knocked out teeth for 24 hours, long enough so that the teeth can be reimplanted by a dentist. Basic first aid kits containing Save-A-Tooth’s are available on Amazon.com. (*To see a complete listing of what the Mayo Clinic recommends, go to http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/first-aid-kits/FA00067).
The importance of having a Save-A-Tooth in every first aid kit is that once a tooth is knocked out, there is a very small window of time, 15 minutes to one hour, in which it can be saved. “The cells on the root of a knocked out tooth are very delicate,” says Dr. Henry Rankow, diplomate of the American Board of Endodontics. “They must be protected and nourished during the first hour while they are out of their socket. Only special devices can do that and they must be available immediately.”
Over five million teeth are knocked out annually in the United States during sports, automobile accidents, and in the home. With the use of Save-A-Tooth, the only ADA-accepted, FDA-approved storage device, over 90 percent, or 4.5 million, of these teeth may be able to be successfully reimplanted. Without this system, only 10 percent of knocked out teeth can be successfully reimplanted since they begin to die within 15 minutes. A knocked out tooth that can’t be successfully reimplanted translates into an average expense of $3,000 in treatment and up to $30,000 over a lifetime.
Once knocked out teeth are placed into a Save-A-Tooth, however, they are safe and protected from harm during transport to the emergency room or dentist’s office. A parent or ambulance driver can attend to a suffering accident victim without having to worry about the knocked out tooth. In fact, once placed in a Save-A-Tooth, knocked out teeth are safe for 24 hours and can then be reimplanted.
“Being informed and prepared for a tooth being knocked out can mean the difference between gigantic bills leading to a lifetime of dental problems and a relatively straightforward re-implantation by a dentist or oral surgeon,” says Dr. Paul Krasner, clinical professor of endodontics at Temple University School of Dentistry. “Millions of teeth are knocked out every year that could be saved if the right equipment were available when an accident occurs,” he adds.
The Save-A-Tooth system is also used as the transportation device for Store-A-ToothTM, the leading dental stem cell cryopreservation service (http://www.store-a-tooth.com). With Store-A-Tooth, patients can save their own stem cells from normally shedding baby teeth and extracted wisdom teeth. The teeth are collected by a dentist and transported to a laboratory that extracts the dental stem cells and cryopreserves them for future medical and dental applications, in a similar fashion to umbilical cord blood banking. Whereas cord blood has been used to treat leukemia and other blood related diseases, dental stem cells are being studied to help treat conditions such as diabetes and spinal cord injury.
“We chose the Save-A-Tooth system for our tooth transport kit because it was the only device accepted by the American Dental Association,” says Dr. Peter Verlander, chief scientific officer of Provia Laboratories. “It has been the standard of care for transporting teeth for over 20 years. To ensure we offer the highest quality service, we felt that Save-A-Tooth was our clear choice.”
Placing a Save-A-Tooth in every first aid kit is a necessity rather than a luxury. Since knocked out teeth begin to die after 15 minutes, there is no time to save the tooth unless you have a kit sitting on the shelf. The stated purpose of first aid kits is to ‘preserve life, prevent further harm, and promote recovery.’ All of the contents of a complete first aid kit, including Save-A-Tooth, fulfill this mission.

[Speedo]

This sounds like a great idea. I had always heard that you should place a lost tooth in milk, but it's not often that you have fresh milk in your car. Thanks for the tip.