What do you think about the safety of wedding rings? The DW is after me to get one again. We have been married for 36 years — used to have one, but it was uncomfortable hammering, and I heard that it could be a source of accident around machinery. And I’m left handed.
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Replies
I picked up a few with fingers attached.
Key ring on site, wear it in the bar, keyring in bed with the bar fly that wants a toss, ( they like "security" you might not come back, or worse an affair, because you are safe...) then back on for home...
Carry some chalk in the glove box, apply the blue to the palm of yer left hand..when ya have a moment with the bar fly, a quick wife will think you were shooting pool...no matter how bad ya been before the shower ya took at motel 8..I've heard.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
"silence, is the only reward"
and it's even deeper..
Perfect works are rare, because they must be produced at the happy moment when taste and genius unite; and this rare conjuncture, like that of certain planets, appears to occur only after the revolution of several cycles, and only lasts for an instant.
Say that three times..
Learned everything I needed life in Kindergarten. #5 Oh what a tangled web we weave when we practice to deveive.....
I grew up with the last word being " concieve" not quite as poetic as "deveive" but after all, I ain't edjumacated yet.
I have been outta town, on the road, married and single, and sober, and wasted..for many yrs with many coworkers.
If you want to hear trhe truth, you get it.
Fingers and wedding rings bring absolution, eventually, it will hurt some one..you , her, her, back to you..
I'd take it off..I do. I like the oppertunity to re-apply it with anew wife..if the case should arise. Nothing like still having the finger when the wife went belly up on ya. Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
"silence, is the only reward"
and it's even deeper..
Perfect works are rare, because they must be produced at the happy moment when taste and genius unite; and this rare conjuncture, like that of certain planets, appears to occur only after the revolution of several cycles, and only lasts for an instant.Say that three times..
Got some buds with the same stories. One day they are leaving the house and kissing their wife goodbye, the next they are leaving the wife and kissing the house goodbye...no thanks!
I don't wear one, cant stand jewelry.
I've never paid any attention to weather or not anyone else is wearing one either.
I think one can cheat with or without with about the same amount of frequency if one desires.
Doug
Last time mine was off was when the emergency room folks explained it was remove, or have it cut off. No choice anymore, knuckle's too large, gonna get sawn. I also haven't stuck my hand into the table saw since, around '75.
Congratulations. We're coming up on 35 yrs. For us, it was a time to splurge. Almost all the detail on mine is gone. In your place I'm pretty sure I'd plead better-to-have-the-finger.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Only wear mine for going to church, and other formal gatherings. Maybe if I had a desk job.
WSJ
I don't wear a wedding ring a work. I haven't a need to decieve my wife... it's just that I like having 10 fingers almost as much as like having my wife by my side. She's cool with it and understands why. But when I leave the house for something other than work... it's on.
One of my guys shot a 3 1/4" nail into the palm of his hand. The nail went right up into his ring finger like a splint. Full on buried the nail with only the head showing. When they went to cut his wedding ring off in the ER, that tough prick pulled it off over the nail and his swollen finger. I almost passed out like a little girl. He doesn't wear one at work anymore either.
Always take mine off when working (especially up high/on ladders). Remember running into a friend at a party many years ago. We graduated high school together, she went off to college at the Naval Academy. Told me how one time during college she was on a ladder pulling some luggage off a shelf. Freak accident, but it caught on her ring and took the finger off. Not cleanly either. The medical term is called 'degloving' which means the flesh is removed. She had the finger put back on, but has only about 50% movement and a long ugly scar up and down both sides of it. Have heard similar stories since then.
Heard about a guy who was ripping stock on his tablesaw, ring gets caught, pulls his whole arm in, bled to death. Don't know if the saw was still running, or if he turned it off before passing out.
Still wear mine after 23+ years, although it almost took my finger off less than a year from first putting it on. Working as an operator at a nuke plant, yanked open a huge 2" thick six foot wide steel door to the turbine building and started walking thru, hand on door, the ring got caught on the edge and the door kept going, yanking me back with it. Scarred, but not dismembered. Can't get the thing off now, gotta be careful...
"I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul." Invictus, by Henley.
Got mine crimped nicely by a boxcar door. Lotsa fun pounding it round again with a 32 oz. ball-peen hammer while still on the finger.
Our employee hand book tells us not to wear
a ring when moving (equipment)washers and dryers.
"Do as I say, not as I do."
My advice to anyone in the trades is to never wear any jewelry on the job. My dad was in the back of a pickup once riding back from the job, lost his balance on a turn, grabbed for the ladder rack, ring got hooked, he fell out, ring stayed, kept the finger with it. This was way before the time of re-attaching digits so his ring sits on the dresser, and he has a cute little stump where the finger used to be.
I on the other hand, have never taken my ring off since the moment she put it on at the church. I know it's a risk, but on the other hand, I did have an incident about a week after I got married.
We were unloading windows out of a truck, I didn't notice the plumbers backing their truck up. I grabbed a window, turned around, and smacked my hand into the end of a copper pipe sticking out of the truck, sort of like getting caught between the hammer and anvil. The pipe would have cut my finger off had the pipe not hit exactly where the ring was. (it was a really heavy window) As it is, I did have to get the hammer out and pound it back round.
I have always looked upon that incident as good enough reason to keep the ring on.
Nevertheless, my advice to anyone else is, leave the baubles at home or in your pocket." If I were a carpenter"
I went to military flight school in 68 and they forbade any rings. They had a neat slide show for wives that showed all kinds of neat photos of former fingers that had snagged ringes on cotter pins, cowling fasteners etc. My wife was anxious to make sure I never wore mine. It has safely lived on my keyring for almost 40 years and wife is content.
When in doubt remove them to a safe location. Home or safety deposit box might be best.
Some, for sentimental reasons - I assume they are unlikely to actually forget they are married - have taken to using some sort of low tensile cord to keep the ring around the neck. Don't need the cord to be so strong as to constitute a danger of hanging if it snags.
Common knitting yarn or cotton string is often a good choice. Test to make sure you can easily snap it with one hand without creasing the neck excessively. Most mason line is too strong. Keep the string short and the ring close to the neck. Too long and it can get snagged too easily or slip over the head and you could lose the ring. Not a good thing for marital relations.
As an electrician, or perhaps simply because I am cheap and a fashion underachiever, I don't wear any jewelry. The resistance of dry skin is my friend. Higher resistance means lower current flow and the difference between a painful shock and a fatal mistake. A ring, if worn for a time cultivates an area of soft, tender, moist and low resistance skin under it. A live wire that contacts the ring is much more likely to give, all things being the same, a much more powerful and dangerous shock.
A ring can collapse when handling heavy objects and dangerously pinch the finger. Failing to have it removed can mean the finger loses circulation and dies.
Along the same line a friend working for a tree surgeon jumped from a moving dump truck, as he had done many times before. This time his wedding ring caught on a metal hook which caused what the medical community terms a 'degloving' injury. The ring pulling the meat from the finger above the second knuckle. A gruesome and painful injury. In such situations the finger below the normal location of the ring is doomed.
Lots of guys, and ladies, wear rings on the job. Every year a few will lose a finger and, perhaps, the ring. A couple may die. IMHO I think protecting the ring, the finger and a life are reason enough to buck tradition and wear or store the ring in some other manner.
I think that car batteries and wedding rings claim the most fingers on a yearly basis. Only 12 volts but several hundred anps make for one hot arc.
Re: "I think that car batteries and wedding rings claim the most fingers on a yearly basis."I don't know of any documentation on, say, the ten most popular ways to lose a ring finger but I suspect car batteries are a popular method. Surrounding a finger with a metal ring that is made to glow red hot doesn't sound like how I like to spend my vacation.I'm not sure there is any 'good' way to lose a finger.
my uncle left his wedding ring and his ring finger on the top rung of a ladder . . . the rest of him survived the fall ok-
I pretty much never wear my wedding ring doing any "real" work
I wear mine at work ...
funny thing ... I don't wear it at home. Put it on before I walk out the door ... take it off as soon as I walk in. It hangs on the hook with my keys.
wasn't real big about wearing it ... until 3/4 thru trade school they tried to change the policy and ban "all" jewelery after a new student came in with face piercings.
that really reminded me just how far I was away from my new bride ... so I never took it off while there.
Now days ... at work like thru most of my life ...
I don't live thinking about a one in a million accident. I just try to work safely to avoid accidents ... if I'm gonna lose my finger falling off a ladder ... ring or no ring ... it's gonna be a bad day.
Jeff
Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa
i'm afraid of losing it if i take it off, but that whole snagging and degloving thing does bother me too, so when i'm doing something i feel nervous about, i wrap a large bandaid or piece of duct tape around and over my ring.
Don't wear mine to work anymore, had it hook a ladder as I was coming down from about 20 feet just about took a fall. I't a ring and I still love my wife if it's on or off.
Worked with a guy who was playing some basketball on break and ended up hanging by his wedding ring on a bolt on the basket ball pole. Very ugly, but he's ok now. I have herd of much worse injuries from them though.
Never owned one. Can't wear rings. My fingers are the size of a gorilla's and the abuse my hands take would only make them a tool for checking ring strength at Consumer Reports.
25 years married and never had a problem without one : )~
Be well
andy
The secret of Zen in two words is, "Not always so"!
When we meet, we say, Namaste'..it means..I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides, I honor the place in you of love, of light, of truth, of peace. I honor the place within you where if you are in that place in you and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us.
I haven't worn a ring of any kind (or a wrist watch) for years. I wore a ring for the first couple of years of my marriage (in 1971) but quit wearing it after I had to cut a ring off of a guy. It's still in her jewelry box. On the few occasions it's been mentioned, I just say that I've been married so long that it shows up beyond a shadow of a doubt - lol.
The child of a neighbor slipped a stainless steel plumbing part onto his finger one time. He didn't tell anyone that he couldn't get it off. Laten, he went to sleep with it on. Swelled up pretty bad by morning. They came to me the next morning, crying kid, and all. I was the one guy in the neighborhood with tools.
I calmed the kid enough to put the ring in the bench vice, got a cup of water to keep it cool, and grabbed the hacksaw. We got though it without hurting the kid, but it was a challenge.
You all need to know and remember that the EMT's and ambulances have a deal called a ring cutter. It's like a tiny little can opener, with a guide that shields the finger while the cutting wheel does it's work. They can cut a gold band in seconds. I guess it's not uncommon in a car wreck to have a ring smashed out of round onto someone's finger. We could all get it off, I'm sure, but the right tool might not be at hand !
Greg
There are far more cases where a ring caused an injury, or made it worse, than the other way around.
I almost always leave mine hanging on a hook in the bedroom when I'm working on the houses. I might leave it on if I'm going to have gloves on over it the whole time. There's a spring hook on my key ring that'll hold it, too, if I forget. It slips off real easy now that I've lost some weight.
-- J.S.
I wear the ring and the watch every time I wear a tie- maybe a couple times a year. I don't need a ring to remind me I'm very happily married, and I'm just ugly enough that I don't get hit on by strangers anyway.
Been married about 20 (wife knows to the hour). Don't wear one. Don't wear any rings. Safer that way around tools and such and I get a rash under the ring. Soap allergy?
The ToolBear
"Never met a man who couldn't teach me something." Anon.
My grandpa, a bricklayer, had one tattooed on his finger so he could have one and not lose his finger. My dad would never wear one on the job, so I grew up believing you were crazy to do so. I would never wear one around a mixer, scaffoling, etc. Mud tears it up anyway.
Don't wear one except if dressing up and going out somewhere. No watch or any other jewelry. I think it is just an added risk that doesn't need to be there. Don't cheat either. I don't think the ring help or hurts that, its all up to the individual. DanT
My gal is a nursing supervisor at large hospital. We wear titanium rings....the e.r. doc said if you EVER get a finger injury, get the titanium ring off FAST, as they don't have any way to cut them off in the e.r.....scary.....changed my ring habits...BeckRe-Home Solutions Inc.
I wear titanium as well. Methinks I'll be changing my ring habits due to this thread and post. Thanks for the heads up.
I used to make rings as a hobby. Sterling and turquoise generally. Made one for my Bro in law a HVAC guy. One day he got it caught in some machinery. Fortunately my solder joints failed on some small part before his finger failed. What I'm getting at is , you need a break-away designed into the ring. Rings also conduct electricty real well,lots better than copper or aluminum.
Keith
Jewelers will cut a notch into the inside of the ring. Acts as a shear point then. Don't know how effective it is, but probably better than it not giving.
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I'm surprised that it took about 35 posts for somebody to mention that jewelers can cut a groove on the ring so that it breaks away in case of a snag. I thought that was a more common practice...nobody else did this to their ring?Justin Fink - FHB Editorial
Is that the same thing as a hinged ring?
I don't think it's very common. I edited a safety magazine at one point in my career and we wrote about it. Never met anyone who mentioned having it done after we published the article."He who prints the money makes the rules” Rep. Ron Paul
Watches also conduct electricity real well! I learned the hard way when my watch shorted out on a alternator. It really didn't hurt to much since a lot of the nerves went up in smoke. Nothing says fun like having some melted plastic and metal specs scraped off of veins, tendons and muscle.
Don't understand the whole ring thing. I refused to even get one.
It's an emotional bond. Symbols cannot enhance this nor detract from it.
We set a ruby in my wedding ring (my Grandma was named Ruby, and it was her stone). Lost that wearing it on the job, then I lost the replacement, then when I lost that, I lost the next replacement. Asked the guy who made it, "what can I do to keep a stone in this ring." He says, "Get a desk job."
No more ring.
Bruce
Between the mountains and the desert ...
Rings -
Have a few. Don't wear any, wedding or otherwise. They tend to get caught and torn off, finger included if you didn't weaken the back with a notch. Besides, I get a skin rash under them.
Probably safer in your ear.
The ToolBear
"Never met a man who couldn't teach me something." Anon.