Straight dope on: Rings, amputation and injury risk

[Bear_Nenno]

There are occassionaly safety advisaries that go out in the Army describing some serious injuries from rings catching on things.
I am going to just get a wedding ring tatooed on my finger instead.

[BoringDad]

I was a “Bah, what a silly fear” kind of a guy about this. Then a couple of months ago through some incredibly bad judgement I ended up smashing my ring finger between the handles of two sledge hammers. Pinched the ring right down on my finger. Had I swung a little harder it would have been a trip to the emergency room to cut the ring off.
Stupid aura of invincibility, where have you gone now that I am grown up?

[David_Simmons]

@wolfstu

I’m a reservist flying instructor in the Canadian Forces. We’re recommended against all jewelry during air ops. Wristwatches are xempt.

We were issued wrist watches that had break-away straps. And then we flew in loose clothing that could catch on almost anything. Go figure.

[Nanoda]

@Yeah

True, but I’d stay away from the power supply and UPS with my ring. I was once changing a bulb on a car when 12 V shorted through my metal watch band. I was shocked by the heat. I’d worry about a burn from the ring.

A book I’m reading right now on PC security has (for some reason) a caution regarding rings. Apparently the author was working on a car with someone when they got their gold ring caught between a battery post and the car body. By the time he got it free, the gold had melted, and things were somewhat unpleasant in the digit department.

[NinetyWt]

's a safety thing for welders, too. My hubby takes his ring off when he welds. Fire of relationship, one thing: fire which singes hubby’s finger off is another thing. We’d like to keep his fingers, thankyouverymuch

[Skammer]

@wolfstu

jumping over a chain-link fence and having the ring catch thereon; neither ring nor finger descend on the other side.

This exact thing happened to my father-in-law many years ago. Jumping over a chain-link fence; wedding ring got caught; ring and finger did not come down with him. He wears the ring on his right hand now.

[redtail23]

One more…a guy I knew in school was standing on a playground swing, pumping it up to jump off. Yup, caught his ring in the chain, stripped his finger off.

The guys I know that work construction or with machinery all take their rings off during work. Some wear them on a chain, some just stick them in a pocket or leave them in the car or at home.

[wolfstu]

Okay, so thanks everyone for the anecdotes. I’m still trying to estimate the frequency, though, and here’s some more of what I’ve found, using some of the search terms presented in this thread:

This site says that

Approximately 100,000 digital amputations occur per year in the US. Of these, an estimated 30% are suitable for replantation.

It doesn’t say how many are due to ring avulsions, but it does say that:

In general, the prognosis for ring avulsion injuries is poor.

Somebody did a biomechanical experiment to figure out how these ring avulsion injuries happen, and discovered that

The average maximum force producing amputation in class III injuries was 154 N, a force much lower than expected. Force measurements for class II injuries were nearly identical to those of class III. This surprisingly minimal force resulting in digit amputation was explained by high-speed cinematography, which showed that the rings tilt on the digits concentrating disruption forces as a result of ring angulation on the finger.

That’s about 34 pounds of force to completely amputate a finger, and half as much to cause major injury that doesn’t result in ‘degloving’. (My first link describes the classification system they’re using.)

Another study says they’ve found a way to reliably prevent these injuries from happening, but I think you have to pay to find out what it is.

Still nothing on frequency, except that total finger amputations count 100,000 per year in the US.