Titanium is increasingly the material of choice when it comes to choosing a wedding ring. Tough, durable and light, the precious metal is seen adorning the fingers of a growing number of brides and grooms. But the incredibly hard metal is proving a problem for hospitals. 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, write: ‘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. But the Sheffield team came up with a solution to the problem when a man arrived at their hospital after spending too long in a warm spa. His finger had ballooned to a huge size and his titanium ring was stopping the blood circulating. They tried elevation, lubrication and standard ring cutters. Even the local fire service was unable to cut the ring off using its specialist cutting equipment. But eventually they tried a large pair of bolt cutters, a standard piece of hospital operating theatre equipment, which sliced through the metal with ease. It was then pulled apart using traction machines and a pair of large paper clips. They wrote: ‘Our method used simple equipment that is readily available in most hospitals at all times, took less than 30 seconds to perform, and could be performed by a sole operator without damage to the underlying finger.’ Source
