Tungsten Rings 101: Emergency Removal of Tungsten Rings

How to Remove Tungsten Rings In an Emergency: A Safe, Simple Process

There are many questions, rumours, & utter misconceptions circulating online about what should or must be done for the Emergency Removal of Tungsten Rings when a person wearing a tungsten carbide wedding band suffers an injury with swelling to the arm, hand, or finger requiring the ring to be removed. Traditionally, wedding rings are made from gold or other similarly soft metals so it was just a matter of snipping the ring with metal or wire cutters. Of course this method will not work on a very hard strong metal like tungsten, but it is still entirely possible to Safely Remove a Tungsten Ring.

Much of the confusion regarding how to remove tungsten rings in emergencies stems from the accurate but misinterpreted reputation tungsten rings have for being extremely strong, hard, & difficult to damage. Tungsten carbide certainly does have all these qualities, but due to a lack of knowledge or the intention to deliberately scare consumers away from competing merchandise, the toughness of tungsten has somehow spawned an ugly myth: the claim that tungsten rings cannot be cut off in emergencies & would thus require amputation of the finger. This could not be more wrong! Again, tungsten rings cannot be cut away by traditional methods, but they are certainly not indestructible. All personnel responding to an emergency remove tungsten rings by cracking them with a regular set of vise grip pliers, which are found in nearly every tool box & kept on hand by emergency rooms.
The emergency removal of tungsten rings should be performed by paramedics, doctors, or other trained personnel whenever possible rather than attempted by the wearer or an untrained individual, but on the condition that we make it clear that an untrained individual should safely remove a tungsten ring for his/her own hand or someone else's ONLY as a last resort, a knowledgeable tungsten rings company has given us permission to use the following video. In this clip, they demonstrate how to remove tungsten rings in an emergency.

To remove tungsten rings in emergencies, you need only a set of vise grips. The emergency removal of tungsten rings is quite easy; simply clamp the vise grips onto the ring & listen for the ring to crack, slightly rotate the ring, & apply pressure for the vise grips again until the ring breaks. If you have followed the instructions for how to remove tungsten rings in an emergency the ring will shatter into many pieces. It is actually easier to safely remove a tungsten ring than other types of rings. One can remove tungsten rings in emergencies with no further injury or discomfort to the wearer, while gold rings often bend out of round during trauma & cut or compress fingers in painful ways, & getting a cutting tool between the bent gold ring & injured finger in order to remove it can be excruciating. Tungsten rings, on the other hand, cannot bend out of round, & have often actually protected the ring finger from the brunt of the trauma. Tungsten rings can only break or not break, & since incremental pressure from a vice grips is used to remove tungsten rings in emergencies, no more pain or disturbance to the injured area occurs.

So as a last resort in an emergency, remove tungsten rings as instructed in the video above. The amputation myth is busted!