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Kabul—Dr. Thomas Grams, a dentist who retired from his Durango, Colo., practice in 2007 to dedicate his life to providing volunteer dentistry to children in remote areas in the Americas, Nepal, India and Afghanistan, was one of 10 members of a health care team reported killed Aug. 5 by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Dr. Grams was 51.

"We lost a good one," said Dr. Courtney Heinicke, a Durango dentist and Dr. Grams' former partner in private practice. "What dentistry is really about is helping people, and he was helping the people who needed it the most."

Dedicated volunteer: Dr. Thomas Grams, shown during recent dental mission trips in Kathmandu, Nepal, was killed while serving as a volunteer dentist in Afghanistan. Photos courtesy of Global Dental Relief.

Dr. Heinicke considered Dr. Grams a wonderful business partner, an inspiring mentor and a close friend.

"It's hard knowing I won't see him again," said Dr. Heinicke. "I'm not so upset about the way he died because what matters is the way he lived his life. He liked going to places where other dentists weren't going, and that's how he ended up in Afghanistan. He found it really rewarding."

Shortly after 9-11, Dr. Grams met an Afghani man in the U.S. who had been beaten by the Taliban and was in desperate need of dental care. Dr. Grams offered to provide the care.

"From there he developed his connections and started going over there. It all just fell together for him. He went to Afghanistan at least seven or eight times in the last six years. He worked hard and built their trust, but was worried that things were getting too dangerous."

Dr. Heinicke said he spoke to Dr. Grams the week before he left for Afghanistan.

"He heard about the trip and wanted to go since it was in an area that had likely not ever seen a dentist before. He said it might be dangerous traveling to and from the clinic site, but that the team would be safe while they were there."

Before he retired from their Durango practice, Dr. Grams mentored Dr. Heinicke, who had just graduated from dental school before entering the practice. "He took time to help me. He cared about my development as a dentist."

Dr. Grams' goal, Dr. Heinicke added, was to volunteer overseas about six months a year and be in Durango the other six months. "He pretty much was able to do that. We spent a lot of time together backpacking, hiking, bike riding and skiing.

"Just looking at pictures of him while he was volunteering overseas makes me understand why he would retire and do this," Dr. Heinicke said. "If I didn’t have a family I would have liked going with him, but the timing was just not right for me. Some day I hope to follow his example as a volunteer."

Kim Troggio, director of Global Dental Expeditions, who worked side by side with Dr. Grams during 10 missions in Nepal and India since 2001, says he was an amazing man with a memorable smile.

"Our organization has treated some 48,000 children in the past nine years in Nepal and India, and he singlehandedly saw 20,000 of them as dental director and lead intake doctor who provided triage," said Ms. Troggio. "He always had a smile for each and every child. He would chant to them in Nepalese to help put them at ease. He never lost his enthusiasm."

Global Dental Relief, a Denver-based charitable organization, brings free dental care to impoverished children in Nepal, northern India, Guatemala and Vietnam, in partnership with local organizations. Volunteers deliver treatment and preventive care in dental clinics that serve children from charity schools, orphanages and remote villages. Travel and logistics for volunteers are coordinated by Global Dental Expeditions, dedicated to humanitarian journeys to serve children in need.

Dr. Grams, she added, was Global Dental Relief's first volunteer. "He responded to a classified ad we placed in the Colorado Dental Association journal. He took at least 30 mission trips. He was just amazing. He wanted to make a difference in children's lives, and he could see first hand how kids would thrive after receiving dental care. I think that really moved him."

On his first trip to Nepal, she remembers, "we loaded up dental equipment on the backs of yaks and walked up 14,000 feet to set up a clinic that would treat hundreds of children. He worked with our organization two to three months each spring and each fall and I know he was also traveling to Afghanistan as a volunteer."

According to press reports and a press release from International Assistance Mission, the bodies of 10 volunteers from its Nuristan Eye Camp team were found in Badakhshan on Aug. 6. Dr. Grams was one of six Americans killed after a two-week health care mission to provide free care to children in remote villages in the Nuristan province, about 160 miles north of Kabul. The health care team had trekked 100 miles in the mountains to set up the clinic.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the slayings, saying that IAM workers were trying to convert Muslims to Christianity. IAM, a nongovernmental organization based in Kabul, says it is a Christian organization registered with the Afghan government that has worked exclusively in the war-torn nation since 1966.

"Our faith motivates and inspires us—but we do not proselytize. We abide by the laws of Afghanistan," said Dirk Frans, IAM executive director, in a press release on the organization's website (www.iam-afghanistan.org).