A bow and arrow? Well, that's one way to pull a loose tooth

Think back: How did you pull your baby teeth when you were little?

Did you go for the old string, doorknob and slam method? Did you get a sibling to yank it out with some thread? Or maybe you just wiggled it with your tongue and fingers for a few days until it popped out (the dentist-approved method).

Here's a new idea: how about tying the tooth to an arrow, and then shooting that arrow at high speed into the woods?

That's what one Sylvester, Ga., dad did when his 7-year-old daughter needed one of her loose teeth pulled.

"Now you gotta hold it to the side!' the dad, Matthew Barksdale, says in a video after handing the phone to his daughter Olivia to film the high-velocity extraction.

"You ready?" he asks, slowly drawing the bow.

"Uh huh," she says, opening her mouth wide. Then, thwishp, the arrow flies.

Olivia doesn't flinch. She just looks down toward where the arrow landed and feels her mouth.

"Got it?" her dad asks.

"Yeah. Thank you!," Olivia responds, showing off the the new gap for the camera. "It's gone, it's gone, it's gone!" she laughs.

Barksdale told WALB its Olivia's second tooth to come out and the bow and arrow was a spur-of-the-moment idea - but he'd do it again in heartbeat, and would as long as Olivia wanted.



Matthew and Olivia's video has now been viewed more than 7,000 times. Commenters on Facebook love how courageous Olivia looks while her dad prepares to shoot.

"WOW, she was so brave," said Sylena Wimes-Graham on Facebook. "I wound have been freaking out terribly." Another said her kid "would of had a stroke" if she'd suggested using a bow and arrow to remove a loose tooth.

If anything, it's certainly one heck of a story to leave for the tooth fairy.

This story was originally published February 1, 2018 at 7:33 AM with the headline "A bow and arrow? Well, that's one way to pull a loose tooth."