THANK GOD FOR GLOVES

[squarecanopy 0]

I was jumping Saturday and doing a 2 way with a guy I have never jumped with before. I climbed out on the T Otter, faced in, standard floater position and he took a grip on my chest strap. I made the pre-arranged count with my leg and we left. What actually happened in retrospect was that I released, he was late enough on leaving that I floated up slightly, my left hand contacted the top of the airplane palm down, slid a short distance down the fuselage, and my wedding ring hung up on end of the drip rail that is above the doorway. Because I had on a pair of lightweight gloves, it did not hang tight and slid over the drip rail. If I had been barehanded I probably would have hooked solid on the drip rail and lost my ring finger. As it is, the joint was bloody,swollen, and sore enough that I did not pack my rig, just went home. The rest of the jump went very well, and even though I felt the tug at the time it all was so unusual and happened so fast that I didn't realize what was happening 'til after I landed.
Moral of this story- I am not going to wear my wedding ring jumping any more, even with gloves. Hardware of all kinds that we wear is subject to possible snagging on all sorts of places in, around, even on the outside of, the airplane.

Just burning a hole in the sky.....

[kkeenan 14]

Quote

...Moral of this story- I am not going to wear my wedding ring jumping any more, even with gloves. Hardware of all kinds that we wear is subject to possible snagging on all sorts of places in, around, even on the outside of, the airplane.

That's good advise. This subject was discussed a lot some time ago. Someone posted a photo of a traumatically-amputated ring finger - not pretty.

Kevin K.

_____________________________________
Dude, you are so awesome...
Can I be on your ash jump ?

[zoobrothertom 5]

Glad to hear you weren't seriously injured!

Also, wearing a wedding ring makes it hard to pick up the really cute tandem students!

____________________________________
I'm back in the USA!!

[fastphil 0]

The Lady that taught my first jump course lost her finger due to a wedding ring / twin beech connection. I rarely wear jewelry myself, I've found it to be non compatable with the speed I need...

[SARLDO 0]

Close one.

After almost losing my ring finger to a rotor blade on a UH-1N (I'll let you wonder how that's possible) I don't wear my ring anywhere around machines unless I wear gloves. I may have to rethink that.

I lost (dropped) my ring at my old DZ before I started wearing gloves. Talk about panic as I didn't realize it until I was 1/2 way home. I still owe beer to the finder for that one.

Be careful out there folks.

"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest" ~Samuel Clemens

MB#4300
Dudeist Skydiver #68

[JohnMitchell 16]

I'm lucky in that Vskydiver is cool with me not wearing a wedding ring at all. I wore it for a few years but I spend too much time around planes, machinery and such. I just really was nervous about catching it on something. Everyone knows I'm married anyway. Thanks, honey.

[vskydiver 0]

Quote

I'm lucky in that Vskydiver is cool with me not wearing a wedding ring at all. I wore it for a few years but I spend too much time around planes, machinery and such. I just really was nervous about catching it on something. Everyone knows I'm married anyway. Thanks, honey.

Your welcome sweetie! Wouldn't want anything to happen to your magic fingers!

[virgin-burner 1]

there they go again!

you guys.. tztztz!

maybe we should request a separate forum just for you guys!?

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

[malarame 0]

It's never a good idea to wear a ring when you're working around machinery. I work at a shipyard, and a lot of the guys at work never wear their ring, even though they're almost always wearing gloves. Same was true when I worked out at sea. A First Engineer I once worked with had actually gotten a tattoo around his ring finger, right where his ring would be, so that he could leave his ring at home but still be "wearing" a ring. I always thought that was pretty cool, and it showed quite a bit of commitment to the marriage.

[Broke 0]

Gloves are also good to wear when yo mess up your landings big time.

Divot your source for all things Hillbilly.
Anvil Brother 84
SCR 14192

[mr2mk1g 10]

You were extremely lucky. I see degloving injuries regularly in my line of work and they are one of the nastiest injuries you can end up with. You're often looking at loosing the appendage.

Rings are freeking dangerous. Take them OFF. I won't even let people wear rings through a FJC I teach. I've seen too many nasty injuries and I don't want a lawsuit because I had someone do a practice exit out of a plane mock up.

[chrismgtis 0]

I would take that ring off man, so you don't lose it. I've personally held a ring for a guy while he jumped. What is probably best is if you had something to put it in and kept that in your bag.

Quote

I'm lucky in that Vskydiver is cool with me not wearing a wedding ring at all. I wore it for a few years but I spend too much time around planes, machinery and such. I just really was nervous about catching it on something. Everyone knows I'm married anyway. Thanks, honey.

You won't find many women that will let you do that. Most would rip your nuts off for that. So it's always like hmmm.... my nuts > my finger.

Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033
Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

[JohnMitchell 16]

Quote

You won't find many women that will let you do that. Most would rip your nuts off for that. So it's always like hmmm.... my nuts > my finger.

Yeah, I won't even tell you how good I have it.

[Jewels 0]

Glad you're okay. Be careful out there!

TPM Sister #102

[vskydiver 0]

Quote

You won't find many women that will let you do that. Most would rip your nuts off for that. So it's always like hmmm.... my nuts > my finger.

Well, see the difference is that JohnMitchell lets me and everyone else know that he's married, regardless of the ring. A ring is meaningless if the actions, intent and attitude aren't there. A ring is just a thing and in this instance is a bad thing to have on. And a ring won't prevent someone from straying if that's what they want to do. I don't mind one little bit that he doesn't wear a ring. I know he's mine.

[shropshire 0]

Just goes to show : "If it can go wrong, one day it will".

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[matc 0]

Can anyone post the picture of the guy or girl whose ring got caught on a line during deployment ? All the skin peeled off ! Very nasty

[hackish 8]

Maybe to those who do not work with their hands all day it is not evident that rings and stuff like this do not mix. I do not know of any tradespeople who wear rings to work. Definitely wouldn't let anyone working for me to.

-Michael

[pwln 0]

I've lost 2 wedding rings.
The first one was Free Climbing and I fell just a little bit, shoved my hand in a crack and the ring came off. It was a good thing that it was just the ring. This was almost 1 year to the day AND at the same location I was married.

A year later, I was working in Oregon and went out with a friend for a few jumps. He was wearing gloves, I was not. He docked on me pretty quickly and my ring fell off about half way into our jump. He asked why I stopped the jump, I told him I was watching my ring go "up".

I called my wife (with a few people from the DZ standing around waiting to hear what she had to say) and I was told I am not allowed to have one again.

Gloves good, Rings bad. BTW, I have never worn a ring when working.

[sartre 0]

Quote

Quote

...Moral of this story- I am not going to wear my wedding ring jumping any more, even with gloves. Hardware of all kinds that we wear is subject to possible snagging on all sorts of places in, around, even on the outside of, the airplane.

That's good advise. This subject was discussed a lot some time ago. Someone posted a photo of a traumatically-amputated ring finger - not pretty.

Kevin K.

Is this the one you're referring to? I remember seeing it prior to my first jump. Since then I've always made sure all my jewelry is off because the image is so vivid.

Bill, glad you are ok. You've always got to find something to scare Karen with, haven't you?

edited to add link
http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2368407#2368407

[chrismgtis 0]

You guys are freakin me out. Guess I'll stop jumping with a watch from now on.

Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033
Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

[The_Don 0]

Good idea.

I am NOT being loud.
I'm being enthusiastic!

[danielcroft 2]

I've been wearing gloves partly because I kept magically getting cut on stuff when doing RW and partly because of my wedding ring. I think I'll take the ring off now.

[Broke 0]

not for the feint of heart.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://bp0.blogger.com/_-iN-28VxLQ4/R4LX6XKTqrI/AAAAAAAABiE/lzAlipXOYMI/s400/Degloved_finger_from_ring_2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://fiendfolio.blogspot.com/2008/01/hand-wound-monday-degloved-finger-from.html&h=400&w=300&sz=27&hl=en&start=6&usg=__9GSFJsJei3qaXtqkxvj15lqQpuE=&tbnid=zZvOowaUJc8hYM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=93&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddegloving%2Binjury%2Bring%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

Divot your source for all things Hillbilly.
Anvil Brother 84
SCR 14192

[mr2mk1g 10]

The two photo's linked are good examples. The greatest warning is that often as not, the affected finger is non-viable after such a traumatic injury and often results in an amputation. I'm not a medic but a lawyer who has to deal with the fall out from this kind of injury so I'm sure some examples will be capable of being surgically revitalised... but I personally see a lot more missing fingers than mutilated fingers resulting from degloving incidents.

Don't wear rings when doing any kind of sporting activity. Any jewellery of any kind should be seen as simply waiting to be lost, potentially taking with it at least a chunk of whatever it was previously attached to...