Injury causes rapid ring removal ..

[Rick Fisher]

I have a small SCM Wide belt sander. It didn't come with electric table movement, largely because its a machine popular in cabinet door shops where the thickness of work rarely changes much .. Each turn on the handle is 1/4 of a mm .. so you can imagine how long it takes to move an inch.. ( 25.4 mm )

So I adapted a corded drill and nut setter to act as a fast table movement tool, its worked fine for a few years.

As luck would have it, I was in a hurry .. and bam, the handle spinning due to the drill whacked my ring finger..

Hours later, the finger is black and blue, starting to swell..

http://i335.photobucket.com/albums/m455/jokerbird_photo/P1040125_zpsc5df2197.jpg

The picture doesn't really show the color.. but believe me, it became really apparent that I needed to get this ring off and fast..

So I tried snips.. no go .. could not find the hack saw.. So I adapted a dremel grinding tool to a cordless drill .. !

Then I thought .. I should take pictures of this..

http://i335.photobucket.com/albums/m455/jokerbird_photo/P1040121_zps71255fb2.jpg


http://i335.photobucket.com/albums/m455/jokerbird_photo/P1040124_zps8bb975ef.jpg


I had to find something that I could use to push the finger away from the ring.. otherwise I would grind through skin.. Getting that drill bit under the ring was really painful.. I mean eyes watering .. yikes..

Anyway.. If you ever had to do this.. I would suggest a bucket of water to cool the ring in .. 3 times it got really hot, I would go inside and run it under water.... My technique is weak..

http://i335.photobucket.com/albums/m455/jokerbird_photo/P1040126_zps2621202a.jpg

I am pretty much sure the finger is broken above the middle knuckle. I cannot express how bad it felt to use pliers to bend the ring ..

http://i335.photobucket.com/albums/m455/jokerbird_photo/P1040127_zpsedddf330.jpg

Good example of how tight it became due to swelling ..

http://i335.photobucket.com/albums/m455/jokerbird_photo/P1040128_zps2322a6bf.jpg


The picture shows that the middle finger is bruised too .. The ring finger took the brunt of the whack..

[Peter Aeschliman]

That is really intense... Glad it turned out okay... My dad gives me a hard time about wearing my wedding ring in the shop. I think he might be right!

[Mike Cutler]

I don't think that's exactly how they would have done it in the ER, but close. It was going to get cut off no matter what.
Accidents happen sometimes. It's good you were able to get that ring off your finger.
Have it resized o fit another finger,and get a new ring designed and made to go over that broken knuckle/finger.

PS.
I can no longer get my wedding ring on either due to broken ring finger. I did mine with a small splitting maul.

[Bill Holland]

That's too bad that it happened- as I am always told by everyone when I get hurt "there is no shortcut to safety" Most master carpenters are missing at least 1 finger or parts of several. It's a learning curve, in my case they just got better at sewing them back together. I have had my fair share of hand injuries in the shop. I may stop wearing my wedding ring after reading this. I did have an occasion where I was removing battery from my drag car & had the wrench in my left hand, the wrench got stuck while I was turning the stud & hit the negative post- It heated that gold band up like & glowing red molten lava in 2 seconds. I could not get my hand off the wrnech or out of the area I was working no where near fast enough- I also had real man tears when I had to remove the ring & a circle of cooked skin from that finger. Took a long to heal, the young bucks thought I was doing some kind of branding a wedding band on my finger intentionally. So of course I went with that & said yeah us tough old men are hard core!

Hope you heal up good as new.
Bill

[johnny means]

Did you try icing the hand down first? Talked to a jeweler yet? It would be coolto have a disfogurrd ring with a cool story behind it.

[Jason Roehl]

A small pair of bolt cutters probably would have done the trick. Tin snips only work on thin sheet metal.

For those of you who may have the more-recently-fashionable platinum wedding rings, the way to get them off is to squeeze them from a couple different spots around the circle with a pair of pliers--the ring will crack and break.

[Brian Brightwell]

Thanks for the documentation Rick. Your example is why I have never wore a ring. I will have my wife look at this. LOL.

[Nathan Birrell]

A small pair of bolt cutters probably would have done the trick. Tin snips only work on thin sheet metal.

For those of you who may have the more-recently-fashionable platinum wedding rings, the way to get them off is to squeeze them from a couple different spots around the circle with a pair of pliers--the ring will crack and break.

Aye, I have a Tungsten-Carbide wedding ring and it would have to be cracked off in an emergency. I make sure to take it off during before any sports or woodworking as I do not want to have to experience that.

-Nate

[Kurt Cady]

For those of you who may have the more-recently-fashionable platinum wedding rings, the way to get them off is to squeeze them from a couple different spots around the circle with a pair of pliers--the ring will crack and break.

Same with tungsten carbide rings

[Bill Huber]

Rings are a bad thing to ware in a shop or where you are very active in working with any type of machines.

When I was 14 I got my hand in a lawn mower, not a ring problem, they saved it all but one finger, now I can only count to 9 so that is why I just build small things.

Just after I had my accident a friend of the family jumped out of the back of a box truck and caught his ring on the end of a bolt and snapped his finger right off.

So from that day on there have been no rings on my hands while I am working, I just can afford to loose any more. Not only can you catch a ring on things but it can also short things out and burn you very bad.

[Jim Tabor]

Rick,
Years ago as an Air Force electrician I had to stop wearing my ring. Wife didn't like it but it was better than losing a finger. That lesson could have cost you a lot more.

[Alan Schaffter]

That's gotta hurt!

Removing a ring by cutting it off is better than the alternative. When I was in the Navy you were not supposed to wear rings around the ship (in my case a carrier) because there were too many places where it could be snagged. To help dissuade folks from ignoring the warnings they had a great safety poster:

It no words, just had picture- a severed finger with about 6 - 8 inches of attached tendon coming out of the severed end. It was sitting on a cloth covered surgeons tray. Right next it was a misshapen wedding ring. Evidently the former owner snagged the ring while quickly going down a ship's ladder. The ring pull off the finger and attached tendons! Even today the mental picture still gives me the creeps!

[Ole Anderson]

If this ever happens to you, give a quick call to your local jewelry shop, most of them have a cool tool for removing rings that won't go over a finger joint. My mom had a similar emergency and they cut it off cleanly so it could be easily repaired. Way cheaper than an ER, likely no charge except to fix the ring.

My Dremel has a really thin cut-off blade that probably would have worked better. Slip a small piece of wood, like a piece of popsicle stick, under it, rather than metal, it won't conduct the heat. For those of you with no jewelry stores close by.

[David G Baker]

I stopped wearing rings and metallic watch bands when I got a strong shock from a piece of machinery that I was working on.

[John TenEyck]

Thanks for posting this. I'm sure it was necessary but I can just imagine how much it hurt while you removed the ring. My wife and I both stopped wearing our wedding rings 10 years ago or more after we both snagged them on some thing or another. Fortunately, neither of us was injured badly. We still remember who we're married to, for better and for worse.

John

[Brian Kent]

Maybe we could get wedding rings tattooed onto our ring fingers, so we still show that we're taken when the ring is off :D.

[Michael Wildt]

Rings are both beautiful and dangerous. This is what a jeweler would use and there is different similar designs used in ERs as well. Some are can be driven by a drill as well.259163

[Rick Fisher]

Haha.. My wife was 100% in favor of going to the hospital and having the ring cut off .. I decided I would rather cut off the ring and wait till morning on the hospital.

So I went to the shop late last night .. trying to figure out how to cut gold late at night..

Wife watched until the grinding started and then it turned into a dispute .. me feeling clever for coming up with a Mcgiver solution and her not appreciating my ingenuity .

So I grabbed the shop camera ..

The piece of wood instead of a heat conducting drill bit is a good idea.. but pain and time where of the essence.. The plier part was definitely the worst..

[Jeff Duncan]

Man sorry to hear/see your injury....one word of caution though....never delay a trip to the ER if you think you may need to go. There are certain injuries that need to be attended to relatively quickly or they get much worse. A buddy of mine, (also self-employed), gashed his finger not to long ago. It was serious enough he knew he should go to the ER to have it sewn up....but figured it was late and so he put it off. Well it started getting worse instead of better so a day or two later when he finally went in....they couldn't sew it up....was too late cut was infected:eek: Long story short that gash caused him a lot of pain over weeks, not to mention lost income from not being able to work, instead of if he had just gone in and had it taken care of right away. I don't know if it's the same for broken bones....but I wouldn't want to take the chance;)

good luck and speedy recovery!
JeffD

[Brian Kent]

Rings are both beautiful and dangerous. This is what a jeweler would use and there is different similar designs used in ERs as well. Some are can be driven by a drill as well.259163

I needed a ring cut off a few years ago. The jeweler had one of these tools and started trying it ("No, I've never actually used it before") by putting the backing bar on the other side of my finger for leverage. I stopped her and went to the next jeweler in the mall, who used to backing bar correctly, under the ring to protect my finger. Glad I went with door #2.

[John Piwaron]

That's precisely why have never worn my wedding ring (or any other) in my shop.

Heal quickly!:)

[Shawn Pixley]

Sorry about the injury!

I've always been paranoid about wearing rings. I grew up working on cars, tooling, etc... My grandfather was very concious about not having anything that can be caught, snagged, or bashed by moving objects. Luckily, my wife is also of the same mind. When we were married, we exchanged ~5$ sterling silver bands. Within a week we independently both took them off. She is now a silversmith / goldsmith. While she might wear jewelry at times, she (and all other jewelers she knows) never wear jewelry (rings, bracelets, necklaces) in the shop.there are too many spinning objects to catch on.

[John Piwaron]

Maybe we could get wedding rings tattooed onto our ring fingers, so we still show that we're taken when the ring is off :D.

If you're taken, you're taken. You don't need a ring for that.

[ray hampton]

Maybe we could get wedding rings tattooed onto our ring fingers, so we still show that we're taken when the ring is off :D.

having a tattoo done on the back of our hand could be bigger so that it could be seen and never be remove

[Jason Roehl]

Aye, I have a Tungsten-Carbide wedding ring and it would have to be cracked off in an emergency. I make sure to take it off during before any sports or woodworking as I do not want to have to experience that.

-Nate

Well, even after a web search, now I'm not so sure. Platinum can be cut, but now I don't know if it can be cracked. Tungsten carbide must be what I was thinking of. My bad.

[Don Morris]

No rings, loose clothing, gloves, in the shop. Glad you're OK, and just a little dinged up. Beats the alternative. I have a dremel type cutter that would have done the job or even my cut off tool in a real jam. Thanks for posting.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

I think you are right Jason, my platinum band gets scratched up pretty easily, so I think it's soft enough to cut. I saw a titanium ring someplace, I wonder how you'd get that stuff cut off. I bet it would be rather brutal.

[Ryan Mooney]

That could have gotten ugly in a hurry, once it starts trapping blood it can really start swelling fast and cause all sorts of complications. Glad you got it off. Do get the finger set asap, I know a couple of people who waited and couldn't get it reset right (sometimes the bone starts to heal back together surprisingly fast) and their hand was always buggered up and didn't work right (and caused a lot of long term pain/irritation).

Jewelry of any sort around machinery is just bad news.

A fellow who worked with my dad got his hand caught in the gears of a horse walked. His wedding ring was crushed into his finger and the finger started swelling really fast because of the trapped blood, dad cut the ring off with a pair of horse hoof nippers. Doctors said it very likely saved his finger.

At another place I was at a gal arced her necklace to a 440 line (actually may have been a transformer, I was in another building/group and only heard about rough details at a site meeting later), luckily it was a thin gold necklace and (literally) vaporized :eek:. She had a bad burn ring around her neck but fortunately nothing worse, wearing jewelry was banned on site after that.

[george wilson]

Platinum can be cut,but it is harder than gold. Special hard chrome plated files are sold for filing platinum. I don't know how brittle it is,but it can be sawn off.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

My father worked and died the floor of an oil rig. He nearly lost his finger when the ring caught in the drive chain for the rotary table. He quit wearing his wedding then.

I worked for him on oil rigs and immediately quit wearing rings.

While in the US Navy working on electronics, we were ordered to not wear our dog tags and encourage to not wear watches and rings to reduce the chance of electrocution. I haven't worn a wedding band in over 44 years.

[Rick Potter]

I retired from Los Angeles County Fire a few years back. Every Paramedic squad had a ring cutter, as far back as I can remember. I cut off a few, some pretty bad, and never wear a ring. Your local department may have them also.

Rick Potter

[Rick Fisher]

What I have learned from this is how you can suddenly be in trouble and not really see it coming. What I mean is .. I bash my finger.. it hurts like heck .. pounds .. okay, that sucks but its not life changing..

Go in the house and watch some TV .. keep the finger up at heart level to stop the pounding..

Then it starts pounding at heart level.. look at it and realize its starting to resemble a balloon.. The ring isn't coming off the conventional way, and the finger is cold.. hmm..

What if I had loaded up on advil and gone to bed ?

No more rings for me in the shop anymore either..

[J.R. Rutter]

I love that you got photodocumentation of the process! Glad you were able to get it off.

[Lee Schierer]

A good reason to remove rings when working on or around machinery. Most Jewelers have special saws that would cut the ring with minimal damage which would make repair much easier and less costly @$1600 per ounce for gold.

[Ronald Blue]

259285

Never ever underestimate what damage a ring can do to a finger. This is graphic and not for the faint hearted. My company has a strict policy on rings and jewelry and this is a worst case scenario on what can happen. While other photos I could post are not as severe of an outcome they are just as disturbing. Machinery and jewelry are a recipe for disaster. As someone else mentioned something as routine as hopping down out of a truck or tractor and having the ring hook something can have severe consequences. That is the tendon tailing out across the pan and it was torn out clear up to the elbow by the way. No they could not reattach it.

[loren forney]

In the late 70's a frind of mine drove a CocaCola truck for a living. Threw an empty syrup cylinder to the top of the truck, it caught on his wedding ring and his finger went with the cylinder. He stopped wearing a ring on his.......... well, there was no finger left to slide one onto.

Must be careful even where no machinery is present.

Loren

[Jim Matthews]

Threads like these reinforce my hand tool use.

Any tool that can zip through lumber will be just as effective on bone and meat.
My training in high voltage (vacuum tube) electronics was to work with a grounding strap, with one hand behind my back.

[Cameron Handyside]

Wow, I've heard the stories and know to wear my safety glasses, dust mask and ear protection. Well, now the wedding band too... I actually have a Titanium ring; really light but very hard. You cannot resize them. I wonder what the emergency procedure for getting it off would be.

My dad was a tank commander and once the .50 caliber jammed. Sitting in the turret, he used his ring finger (he's left-handed) to extract the spent, jammed shell. The bolt slammed on his finger and the only thing preventing injury was his wedding band. He still tells the story and shows everyone the "oblong" wedding band.

[Jim Rimmer]

Thanks for posting. Since your face and name are not in the photos, I hope you don't mind if I use them in a safety huddle to remind our employees why we have a no rings policy in our shop. They have all heard the horror stories about catching the ring on something but this is a different reason to not wear them in the shop.

[Peter Aeschliman]

Obscenities!!!! I am scarred for life.

I need to figure out a routine for removing my wedding band when I enter the shop, and putting it back on when I leave. Taking it off is safer for me when I'm in the shop, and putting it back on when I leave is safer for me when I'm home (wife).

That image is forever burned in my memory. I'm disgusted, but I'm glad you posted it.

[Chris Padilla]

I got to removing my ring so many times that I finally removed it and stored it in my wife's jewelry box for fear of losing it. We have been married for 15 years and I think that happened 14 years, 11 months ago. :)

[Mike Heidrick]

259285

Never ever underestimate what damage a ring can do to a finger. This is graphic and not for the faint hearted. My company has a strict policy on rings and jewelry and this is a worst case scenario on what can happen. While other photos I could post are not as severe of an outcome they are just as disturbing. Machinery and jewelry are a recipe for disaster. As someone else mentioned something as routine as hopping down out of a truck or tractor and having the ring hook something can have severe consequences. That is the tendon tailing out across the pan and it was torn out clear up to the elbow by the way. No they could not reattach it.

Man that is gross.

No rings for me anymore. I lost a ton of weight and the ring I had really needed to be resized/replaced so I just stopped wearing it. Told my wife I would get a ring tattoo before wearing one again most likely - always felt I would loose it fishing or on the motorcycle and its dangerous around machinery.

[ray hampton]

Thanks for posting. Since your face and name are not in the photos, I hope you don't mind if I use them in a safety huddle to remind our employees why we have a no rings policy in our shop. They have all heard the horror stories about catching the ring on something but this is a different reason to not wear them in the shop.

I can understand some of those accidents but not someone using a drill press running a drill bit between the finger and the ring that were on the finger, I was chosen to finish the the job and would have to place my ring finger in the drill-bit path on purpose to contact the spinning bit

[Keith Avery]

I can still vividly remember that photo Alan mentioned the Navy used. As a pilot in the Navy part of our preflight brief was to remove jewelry, rings and dog tags. Only watches were allowed. That photo was more effective than the drunk driving death movies they made us watch in high school.

[Joe Shinall]

Thanks for posting that. I got married 66 months ago and stopped wearing my ring 65 months ago. My wife has been on me ever since and I always tell her I do not wear it for the very reason you posted. Now I can show her those pictures and she may understand. Probly not, but worth a shot.

[Alan Lightstone]

I was going to find a picture of a ring cutter. What's what we use in the ER or OR. Someone beat me to it. Also, there is a neat trick with some string/dental floss/suture that often works without cutting the ring. We usually try that first. It works quite often. Basically wrapping the finger tightly with very thin sting, lubricating it, and slipping the ring over the new, temporarily smaller digit.

I would have just gone to the ER.

[Julie Moriarty]

I was a first year apprentice and not yet married. Our class was shown many photos of what can happen when you don't take the necessary precautions while working with electricity. One photo showed a finger that was severed at the ring. The ring was welded to the bus of a panel. Our instructor said, "This is one reason why you should never wear any kind of jewelry at work." Then he went on to talk about watches, earrings, necklaces, etc. My thoughts went to all the additional ways you could get shocked through them In my 30+ years in the trade, I never wore ANY metal jewelry at work. Those lessons and images were forever burned into my brain.

[Rick Fisher]

Nah.. That was just a loose drill bit .. I needed something to move the meat away from the ring so the grinder didn't cut me..

Its funny, today I can think of some better methods to accomplish a swollen ring removal but at the time, when you realize your in trouble, you kinda just go for it ..

[Phillip Gregory]

I don't think that's exactly how they would have done it in the ER, but close. It was going to get cut off no matter what.
Accidents happen sometimes. It's good you were able to get that ring off your finger.
Have it resized o fit another finger,and get a new ring designed and made to go over that broken knuckle/finger.

PS.
I can no longer get my wedding ring on either due to broken ring finger. I did mine with a small splitting maul.

There are three devices in the ER to destructively remove stuck rings. First we'd try to wrap some decent sized suture or at least 0 size underneath the ring, put a large amount of KY jelly on the finger, and try to pull the ring off. Patients don't particularly like it when we break their rings so we try to avoid it when possible. Somebody posted a picture of the first ring-breaking device, which looks a bit like a linesman's pliers and cuts through rings made of soft material like gold. The second is a little cut-off wheel mechanism in what is essentially a cordless rotary tool. This can cut off harder rings like platinum but works agonizingly slow- or at least the one we had did. Very hard rings like tungsten carbide are squeezed with a big pliers until they crack. I wear a tungsten carbide ring because it is impervious to scratches but don't wear it at home and put it in my pocket at work when I need to do something with my hands more dangerous than typing on a keyboard.

[Jeff Monson]

Its funny, today I can think of some better methods to accomplish a swollen ring removal but at the time, when you realize your in trouble, you kinda just go for it ..

Looks like quick thinking Rick, mission accomplished in my book. Glad you got it off, I'm sure it made you more nervous the tighter it got!

[Ryan Mooney]

Looks like quick thinking Rick, mission accomplished in my book. Glad you got it off, I'm sure it made you more nervous the tighter it got!

Yep there is no substitute for quick action and getting it done. Finesse is for the post-mortem analysis :D