This is, believe it or not , a true story.
When I was just starting on the bottom rung of a fairly long surgical training ladder at the best Teaching Hospital in the land (even though it no longer spells its name correctly) I was on duty doing my compulsory six months stint as Casualty Officer.
One Monday morning in September 1971 a fairly sheepish young chap from the City walked in , wouldn't let any of the nurses talk to him and was shown straight into my cubicle in Casualty.
He had recently got married and as he dropped his trousers it was clear that his substantial 9 ct Gold wedding ring was firmly around the base of his todger, the distal end of which was the size and colour of a fresh, ripe, aubergine...........
The ring had 'slipped off his finger' while he was taking a leak at his office in the City.
He had struggled without success with soap.....
Now it happens that there exist purpose-designed ring cutters for getting rings off traumatised or swollen fingers: They work on the same principle as the rotary style hand driven tin openers, with a tiny lip that slips under the ring to protect the finger.
Our Casualty dept had two of them......
.
.
.
.
.
Which were both away for repair.
Thinking on my feet I phoned Engineering in the bowels of the hospital and asked them for ideas and to come up PDQ before the aubergine turned to a large prune.................
Two burly blokes in boiler suits appeared with a mole wrench, a couple of pairs of needle-nosed pliers and a 'kin great hacksaw.
They were brilliant: though it took nearly half an hour for them to saw the ring off , they were as gentle as could be and my patient escaped with only minor lacerations to his todger.
Sadly he never returned for his follow up appointment....................
Post script:
This happened at about 10.30 in the morning and by the time I got to the mess ('College House' - white-coated waiter service in those days
)for lunch, the story had flashed all round the hospital and one of my (non-casualty ) mates actually sidled up to me to tell me the story.
I'm afraid I'll have to skip the punch-line- the complete hilarious appropriateness of the patient's surname- on grounds of patient confidentiality.
I'll save my (true) Family Planning Clinic story for another day...................