Page 19 - Bulletin Vol 28 No 1 - Jan. - April 2023 FINAL

In Our Society | New Members

Welcome to our Newest Members!

Dr. Silvia Baila of Greenvale - General Practice Resident NUMC
Dr. Tonya Bellamy-Bissoon of Westbury - General Practice

Dr. Stephanie N Cahill of Lynbrook - General Practice
Dr. Josiane M. Chrisphonte of Farmingdale - General Practice
Dr. Nazli S. Diba of Roslyn - Pediatric Dentistry
Dr. Anukriti Gupta of Port Washington - General Practice
Dr. Steven Kauftheil of Roslyn - Prosthodontics

Dr. Elizabeth Knott of Manhasset - Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology Resident LIJ/Northwell
Dr. Susie Ko of Garden City - General Practice
Dr. Shylon Mathew of Floral Park - General Practice
Dr. Sophia M Rodrigues of Seaford - General Practice
Dr. Brandon J Saxe of Hempstead - Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Resident NUMC

On the Funny Side...

Using Dental Floss to Escape From Prison

On June 29, 1994, Robert Dale Shepard, then 34, escaped from the South-Central Regional Jail in South
Charleston, West Virginia by climbing a rope made of dental floss.
Two days before his successful escape, he braided dental floss into a rope and tried unsuccessfully to
thread it through a fence capping a recreation yard wall. This first attempt failed because he didn’t make
the rope long enough. The guards found the dangling rope, but when they did nothing about it, he tried a
second time and was successful. He used 48 strands of mint-flavored, waxed dental floss braided to the
thickness of a telephone cord, tied an AA battery to the rope and hurled it through a chain-link fence that
capped the 18-foot cinder block walls to escape from another recreation yard. Shepard had planned the

escape for days, buying two 100-yard packs of floss from the prison commissary and trading cigarettes for
more floss from unsuspecting inmates. His rope took seven packs. He used dental floss because it was
readily available, easily concealed, and strong enough to hold his 5-foot-9-inch, 155-pound frame.
He then spent 41 days running from the law before being recaptured. As a result, jail authorities stopped
selling dental floss to inmates.

Nassau County Dental Society ⬧ (516) 227-1112 | 19