This lady’s wedding finger is about to be amputated any moment from now. The wedding ring refuses to come off and the finger is swelling everyday. Any suggestions to remove it?

This is coming after it was reported, that doctors have found that it is very difficult to cut titanium rings off the finger of a patient in an emergency. Whereas traditional gold or silver can be easily snipped away if a finger is swollen or a surgeon needs access to the whole hand, titanium is too hard for conventional equipment.

Surgeons at Sheffield’s Northern General Hospital warn of the problem today in the Emergency Medicine Journal. Andrej Salibi and Andrew Morritt, of the hospital’s plastic surgery department, wrote: ‘Titanium rings are becoming popular because of their strength, durability, low weight and hypoallergenicity. ‘Rings made of gold or silver are easily removed with basic ring cutters; in contrast, titanium rings require specialist cutting equipment such as dental saws, drills or diamond-tipped saws. ‘These techniques can take up to 15 min to divide the ring, can burn the underlying skin, require an assistant to provide irrigation and may not be available within all hospitals at all times.’ If not dealt with promptly, constriction from a ring can cut off the blood supply and the tissue can die. In some cases a patient may even lose a finger.