Grabbing the Ring

The rule is simple. It you get stung by a bee on your hand, immediately remove your rings.

Simple rule, but not well published.

Instead, what is published is a physiological description of what happens.  "Under muscular control, the two sliding lanclets move rapidly backwards and forwards, alternately, past each other, effectively sawing into your flesh." (The Beekeepers Bible, p.128.)

"The sting... is an ovipositor that has been remodeled a few ways for the injection of poison instead of eggs."  (The Hive and the Honey Bee, p. 107).

Thanks.  That is great information, but not helpful in preventing me from having my wedding ring cut off in the emergency room yesterday.

To be fair, it does make sense, in retrospect.  Get stung on the ring finger, remove the ring before it swells up.  Unfortunately, my books don't tell me that. They give me an anatomy lesson, figuring the real-life lesson with will teach itself. And it did.

Even the interwebs were only a little bit better:

• Usually, lubrication with soap and water along with proximal traction on the skin beneath the ring is enough to help you twist the ring off the finger.

Thanks.  Did not help. I even went the further step of using string to try to slide the ring off.  No dice.  Benadryl did not help.  Neither did icing it down.  
  

Truth be told, I also worked the rest of the day, and managed to smash the same finger between a bench grinder and a reciprocating saw while working.  Not optimal conditions for reducing swelling. 

When the ring stopped sliding around, I started worrying.

When we got there to the ER, the nurse was sympathetic. And she felt really bad for me while she tried to get the ring off by using tourniquet tape.  It hurt like billy-oh, and still did not succeed in getting the ring off my finger. 

Ringcutter tool, available online.

The doc came in, and agreed.  We're going to have to cut it off.  (The ring; not the finger...)

After a brief interlude, three people came back in, bearing four ringcutter tools.  The first of the four  tools was too dull.  The doc sawed at the ring, with little benefit. And saw even less benefit with the second, and third of the tools. And the fourth.

Finally, he called for "the toolbox". 

Hammer, discarded.  Vise grips, discarded. Level (what does an emergency room need with a level?) put to the side.



Finally, he pulled out the pair of bolt cutters, a pair of vice grips, and a pair of pliers. 

A lot of tools.  And I was seriously outnumbered.  

Eventually the ring was cut off, and pulled free of my finger; the swelling started to go down almost immediately.  And we will be taking the ring to the jeweler to get it fixed, so I will be able to wear my brand again.  But most importantly, I learned a valuable bee lesson:

When from her butt the venom springs,

move really quick to remove those rings.