As a 4 yr old kid in the mid kid in the 1950's at some time in the early evening I got high carbon steel ring stuck on the middle finger of my left hand , it came off a pre - ww2 leather handbag clasp . Mum tried every thing she as a former nurse knew to get it off .
I even slept with my arm tied up high to some timber wedged behind the bed headboard to try and get the finger deflated. Come 07.00 in the morning the finger was starting to blister with gas gangrene & was a lovely dark purple . We had to walk five miles to a place where we cold catch the daily bus to the nearest town some 9 miles away and then walk half a mile to the hospital . By that time my finger was not quite black but well on the way , the blisters were all over the the upper finger and a bit below the ring area .
In the casualty dept they broke four pairs of ring cutters , They even called in a local jeweler who bragged that his cutters would cut the ring off no problem .....PING it didn't even polishe it ! no more ring cutting from them .
Twas now just into the afternoon & I was prepped for an operation to have my finger taken off when the jeweler came back saying he had a possible solution . I was taken by ambulance as dopey as a politician to a local precision engineering company whey they lifted me up on some planks of wood covered in a blanket and used some strange scissor looking clamp to hold the ring and finger . I was given tow injection in my hand , then they held up a white sheet between my face and the machine the proceeded to wet grind the grind the ring open , then rotated it and after sliding something under the eased off part to lift it off my skin ground off the other side .
Fortunately there was no damage to my skin and a course of penicillin sorted out the possibility of gangrene infection ... I remember that I got a big bowl of ice cream with strawberries on top as it was a very rare thing in my life in those days , for we hadn't got electricity or running water.
My mum kept those bits of ring for years and years usually bringing them out at weddings , christenings , my own marriage & family's christenings .