A 24-year-old man has unexpectedly died after undergoing what should have been a routine dental surgery in California.

Marek Lapinski's death is still shrouded in mystery today after reportedly falling deathly ill within hours of having his wisdom teeth taken out in Southern California last week.

Mr Lapinski, the former vice president of T3D, a San Diego company specializing in tactical 3D equipment and cameras, was transferred to a Los Angeles hospital over the weekend where he died, WPXI reports.

Just the beginning: Mr Lapinski moved to California from Pennsylvania after graduating college in 2010, soon after launching a tactical device company in San Diego called T3D
Mr Lapinski's family say the young Pennsylvania native led a promising life now cut tragically short, having only graduated from Pittsburgh's Duquesne University in 2010 and one year later already working behind his own space and defense company.

Among his company's products was a device that allows any camera to produce 3D images on a screen with the help of a special software.


'He's going to leave a legacy that's just tremendous. It's just crushing now because we're all looking for a reason,' his cousin, Dustin Hook, told WPXI. 'He was the most driven and passionate person I knew.

'I'm just so glad he did what he wanted to do to make himself happy,' said Mr Hook.

Tactical work: Some of Mr Lapinski's recent work with T3D was a device for military units, enabling any camera to turn photos into 3D ones
In one of Mr Lapinsk's last public messages on Twitter last week he told his friends of his planned procedure scheduled for March 21st, as well as his expectations of soup and yogurt for the following few days.

'It's gonna suck big time buddy, it's the worst,' a friend wrote back to him.
'Thanks for the words of encouragement habibi,' Mr Lapinski jokingly replied.

The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office says the body has yet to be examined leaving the cause of death still unknown.

Unfortunately, deaths following the oral surgery, even while regularly performed, are not unheard of.

In early 2011 a 17-year-old Maryland teen died following complications during the outpatient procedure.

The official cause of death ruled by the state's chief medical examiner was hypoxia or oxygen deprivation while she was anesthetized.
In early 2012 three other patients between the ages of 14 and 21 in Georgia died within 16 to 72 hours of having their wisdom teeth extracted.

Dental expert Dr. Crystal Baxter told CBS Atlanta at the time that infections are one of the leading causes of dental deaths.

'The patient could develop a post-operative infection and that could lead to fatality,' said Baxter. 'You get swelling of the brain and then you get either brain damage or brain death.'

Other potentially deadly causes are reactions to anesthesia, inhaling blood in the lungs leading to suffocation, reaction to prescribed drugs and bacteria in the mouth entering the blood stream.