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..



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..







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..



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 ..



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




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