Sultan Kosen stands with Dr. Eric Johnson and the rest of his dental team at a press conference last week. Photo by Chris Bashaw
Sultan Kosen, 27, towered 8 feet 4 inches over San Clemente on August 23 when he came to town for a cosmetic dental overhaul that included gum restoration, cavity treatments, tooth extraction and root canals—topped off by the installation of veneers.
“You never build a house on a rocky sewer,” Johnson said at a news conference on Wednesday, August 25, explaining the overall health of Kosen’s gums and teeth had to be restored before veneers could be mounted.
Kosen’s procedure has an estimated value of $50,000, but Johnson and his collaborators agreed to give Kosen his new smile pro bono.
The totality of Kosen’s treatment, which would normally take four months, occurred in ten days with Kosen clocking in approximately 50 hours of chair-time, Johnson said.
Gary Vaughn of Frontier Laboratories, one of the companies providing materials for Kosen’s procedure, said Kosen’s veneers were produced in two days—a process that typically takes three or four weeks.
Kosen, a native of Turkey, is scheduled to return home on September 1.
Before he came to San Clemente, Kosen received an operation at the University of Virginia to treat the brain tumor on his pituitary gland and halt his growing.
Since he was 10 years old, the pressure the tumor placed on his pituitary gland has secreted a copious amount of growth hormones and is responsible for Kosen’s extraordinary height.
It’s a surreal feeling to shake his 10.8-inch hand, but bear in mind that although Kosen’s size makes him an uncommon man, his one desire in life is a little more so.
“Like everyone else, I want my own family,” Kosen said through translator and Guinness Book of World Records spokeswoman Kelly Garrett. “Hopefully it will happen one day.”
On August 26 Kosen visited the Boys and Girls Club of the South Coast Area in San Clemente.
Staff member Andy Brosche said Kosen was met by a flood of “wow”s as he stepped out of the van and headed to the gym for photo opportunities.
A root canal performed that day that prevented him from speaking for a long period of time, but Kosen answered questions about his height, shoe size and his favorite food and sport, which are Mexican and soccer, respectively.
“He was really gracious to the kids,” Brosche said, adding Kosen would wave and point out kids who patiently raised their hands to ask him a question.
At 8 feet 4 inches Kosen overshadows Yao Ming, the National Basketball Association’s tallest, active player at 7 feet 6 inches.
There is sometimes a discrepancy in reports of Kosen’s height: When he was crowned with the tallest man in the world in September 2009, he stood at 8 feet 1 inch; when he was measured at the University of Virginia last week he stood at 8 feet 4 inches.
At a news conference on August 25, Garrett said Kosen “has since been measured at 8 feet 2 inches.”
Whatever the circumstances surrounding the discrepancies in Kosen’s height, it is an undeniable fact that he’s tall—so much so that his height cripples him: He must use crutches to support him wherever he walks or stands.
Kosen’s crown as the Tallest Man in the World is inherited from Leonid Stadnyk of the Ukraine, who measured 8 feet 5 inches but has since refused to be measured by the Guinness Book of World Records.
Stadnyk hates his height, once saying it was “God’s biggest punishment for [him].”
Kosen, however, said being the tallest man in the world has changed his life for the better.
“Before I was crowned with the title, I was almost living in a box; Guinness Book of World Records [has] opened that box,” he said.
“I’ve been to several countries [and] some people are fascinated by me or scared, but at the end of the day I’m a normal person—so don’t be scared,” Kosen added.
Post a Comment
