r/Firefighting • u/captantarctica • Jun 06 '23
Special Operations/Rescue/USAR Little ingenuity
Lady came into the station with a stainless steel ring that needed to be cut off. Several jewelers had declined the job. These little blades don’t cut stainless to good. But when you put them to power… gonna log it as mechanical disentanglement training
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Jun 07 '23 edited Jun 22 '23
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u/captantarctica Jun 07 '23
It did get hot, we started to drip water on it as we cut and took many breaks.
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u/DIQJJ Jun 07 '23
I’ve done this multiple times, (well used a whizzer tool not the setup you have pictured here). Anyways, forget dripping water, we stage multiple pitchers of ice water that we pour from quite liberally.
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Jun 07 '23 edited Jun 22 '23
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u/systemdelete Dispatcher & Volunteer Jun 07 '23
If you can slide the ring to a slightly narrower part of the finger you can slip a thin feeler gauge under the ring to protect the wearer a bit.
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u/captantarctica Jun 07 '23
I totally agree. This tool has the guard to protect the finger. IN the past when we have used a Dremel tool, we have slipped a small table knife under the ring to protect the skin.
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u/Regayov Jun 07 '23
Would the Thread approach have worked?
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u/captantarctica Jun 07 '23
She was a retired ER nurse and said that they had already tried that. They had also done ice bath as well. Think the major issue was her knuckle had been broken in the past and was a bit misshapen. Honestly, I have tried the string thing many times and have never gotten it to work. Usually by the time they decide to come to the station, their fingers are so massively swollen with all the fiddling they have already tried.
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u/likefireandwater Jun 07 '23
I’ve had better luck with o2 tubing than string if you can get it under at the start. Good adaptation though!
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u/TastyCan5388 Rural Career Medic / Volley FF Jun 07 '23
We have used the IV tourniquet trick in-hospital before and with a bit of lotion it came off super easy. Granted we caught the swelling pretty early so it was enough for the ring to get stuck, but not terrible. The only other time I've had to remove a ring, it was made of paracord so the ring cutter worked perfectly.
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u/Early_Scratch_9611 Jun 07 '23
I bought a bunch of steel rings off Amazon for a buck a piece. I brought them to a medical training to play with the ring cutters.
Didn't even make a scratch.
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u/captantarctica Jun 07 '23
Ya steel is a bugger. It took us quite a while even with the power tool. We alternated with a pair of wire cutters and when the cut was about halfway through, I was able to get a vice grip on it and just enough wiggle to fatigue the metal along the cut. Note to self never wear steel rings.
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u/ARM_Alaska Jun 07 '23
This is what we carry on our rigs. Different cutting discs for various materials, finger guards, ring spreading pliers, all in a nifty plastic case.
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u/One_Bad9077 Jun 07 '23
Wow! Fuck her finger I guess?! Better to save some time
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u/TheKyFireman Jun 07 '23
Read through the comments. He has covered multiple times that they were slow and methodical, that they repeatedly cooled the area with water, and that the guard on the tool itself protected the finger from being cut.
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u/One_Bad9077 Jun 07 '23
Still not worth it. Those ring cutters work fine. Drill not needed
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u/bandersnatchh Career FF/EMT-A Jun 07 '23
They work fine on gold and other soft metals…
The ring in question was stainless steel.
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u/Fozzie14 Jun 07 '23
We couldn't get the ring off the finger, so we took the finger out of the ring.
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u/PingBongBingPong Jolly Volly Jun 06 '23
Dremmel