Injury causes rapid ring removal ..

[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]

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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]

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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.