Worst burn you've ever had

[OVERKILL]

Well, I gave mine to myself today. Was putting the battery into the aluminum boat and tightening down the nuts for the power leads and instead of using my favourite ratchet that I always use for this task, I grabbed a wrench from my dad's socket set and used that. Well, my wedding ring contacted the negative post. And the wrench contacted the wedding ring. I had a literal ring of fire around my finger, and on top of that, I got mildly electrocuted while I was welding my finger with my wedding ring.

OUCH!

I was spinning the ring on my finger after I broke the weld it had made to the terminal free to try and minimize the burning, although what had already been done was pretty bad. I can't get the ring off, so I've backed it up as close to the knuckle as I can, anointed the burn area and wrapped it with gauze after sterilizing it. It actually hurts a lot less than I expected it to.

I was able to still drain the carb on the generator and revive it (it was under water.... that's another story) and get the cottage ready for the summer. We'll see how this thing looks tomorrow.

 

[ag_ghost]

Dude!
Ouch! Don't let it get infected. Not practical to get to an urgent care clinic?

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: ag_ghost
Dude!
Ouch! Don't let it get infected. Not practical to get to an urgent care clinic?


I'm not a fan of visiting the doctor unless it is urgent. If this looks bad tomorrow, I may decide to give her a call. My definition of urgent may be different from others, LOL! I taped my knuckle skin closed once when I wore a butterfly knife across it and I could see through the hole in my tendon....

The skin didn't break (surprisingly!) so I'm thinking it probably won't get infected. Plus I sterilized it and coated it in burn cream, then wrapped and taped it.

 

[HTSS_TR]

Lesson learned: No ring while working on car or boat or anything that need to use a tool.

 

[ag_ghost]

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL


I'm not a fan of visiting the doctor unless it is urgent. If this looks bad tomorrow, I may decide to give her a call. My definition of urgent may be different from others, LOL! I taped my knuckle skin closed once when I wore a butterfly knife across it and I could see through the hole in my tendon....

The skin didn't break (surprisingly!) so I'm thinking it probably won't get infected. Plus I sterilized it and coated it in burn cream, then wrapped and taped it.

I agree with your sentiments about visits to the doc and you clearly have a handle on this, so to speak. Good luck getting some sleep.

 

[wrcsixeight]

Sounds like a good enough excuse to never don a wedding band to me.

My worst burn is likely from a cup of noodles. The second when I was pouring the boiling water into the cup, the lid folded over and directed the boiling water not into the cup, but onto that nice patch of skin between thumb and forefinger.

Then there were other times when an exhaust pipe on a motorcycle got angry at my calf.

 

[BobsArmory]

Watch out for swelling! If you lose circulation for to long you can say goodbye to the finger. Any ER or Urgent care has a ring cutter if you need it. I had to have a ring removed one time. Just glad it didn't start swelling while I was sleeping.

My worst burn was from molten caramel. Stuck to me like glue. I still have the scars to remind me about my stupidity.

 

[Darren270]

My worst burn occurred about 20 years ago when I was working as a cook at a local Chili's Grill and Bar. I drained some water that had just finished boiling into a 5 gallon bucket. As I was doing this I was talking to a co-worker and didn't think about the fact that I had just filled the bucket to the rim. As soon as I picked it up, the water sloshed onto my chest and hands causing me to drop the bucket.

The burns on my chest and hands began to blister. Drove to the emergency room where doctor gave me some burn cream for my second degree burns. I'll never forget that pain of those burns. That burning sensation just wouldn't go away for about a week. Luckily I have no scars, but... Ouch! Lesson learned.

 

[Win]

Oh my goodness, that sounds really bad.

I think I would have that ring removed immediately just to be on the safe side, or at the very least, have a doc look at it.

I'm accident prone, so I don't wear any jewelry, including a wedding ring, because of the potential for accidents like this.

 

[The_Jeff]

Had a grease fire on my gas bbq and on-fire grease was dripping through a specifically designed hole, into a rinky dink soup can which was designed for it, overflowing, and landing on top of the 20 lb propane tank. And the built in thermometer was pegged at 900'F. Pretty funny in hindsight.

I reached in to turn off the gas tank and caught one drop of burning grease on my hand while I was rapidly turning the valve clockwise. It left a scar. That "grease" had a little old caramelized BBQ sauce in it as well. Sugar fire!

 

[01rangerxl]

Worst was from a commercial stove burner that had been on all night. It was pretty nasty for a few days, but not significantly worse than the various oil and cat con/exhaust manifold burns I've gotten. Nearly all have been on my hands and lower arms. I've been burned more times than I can remember.

Small burns don't bother me much anymore, but I'm terrified of getting a large burn or having a flame on me.

 

[charbaby]

I was suited up from head to toe with coveralls, hood with air, boots, sleeves and golves. I had chemical burns on both inside forarms where the chemical poweder had gotten down into my protective sleeves. It slowly ate through my tyvec suit onto my skin.

These were hands down the worst burns that I have ever experienced. Even worst than working around hot exhaust manifolds/catalitic converters which, gives you that shock burn and causes you to jump back/pull back away from the heat source.

Chemical burns can be slow acting and even after treatment, continue to burn the skin.

 

[pcoxe]

Important rule! No jewelry while doing electrical. A gold chain shorting out could decapitate you! You're lucky you didn't instantly lose the finger! Also, the damage may be deeper than you realize due to electrical shock effects. Don't take any chances!

 

[crinkles]

Poured boiling hot water over my left forearm as a kid.

No scars, surprisingly. Hospital gave special burn cream.

 

[Shannow]

18 month old, got a big burn on the back of my left hand from a brown coal briquette fireplace...wore the scar until I was about 35.

Changing the vacuum regulator on an auto transmission after it suddenly wouldn't leave 1st, smelled bacon frying, and it was the white part of my forearm on the header...3" diameter, that got wet/nasty, but tea tree and cod liver/zinc left no scar. Similar when my bro came over with his Ducati Monster, and asked me if I wanted a sit on it...of course...in shorts, and the hot exhaust got me and I couldn't drop my brother's new bike.

Then there's brazing flux...

When I did motor mechanic stuff at tech while in high school, the teacher had a wicked wrist burn where he got the car to nearly start shorting his watch out between chassis and starter...it left a mark on me, but obviously only about wristwear.

 

[MBS500]

I guess my worst would be driping burning plastic onto my hands when I were little kid.

 

[exranger06]

I once absent-mindedly grabbed a piece of metal that had just been welded. I grabbed it right AT the weld, too. Left a large blister on my palm, but healed on its own just fine.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

When I was 4 on my first camping trip, I fell into the fire. Did a number on my left hand

 

[pbm]

As an (interior structural) firefighter in the busiest dept. in the world for over 30 years I've been to the burn center a few times. Steam burns are the worst but have become less frequent since we started using bunker gear, hoods etc..in the mid 1990's.
(The down side to bunker gear is that you can get yourself in trouble before you even realize it).
Get yourself some Silvadene cream asap...

 

[JHZR2]

ouch. Batteries can put out a ton of current in a short... 1000A into 0.02 Ohm is still 20kW of I^2R resistive heating for a very short amount of time. The heat capacity of a gold/copper mix is around 0.15J/g_0C. A ring is what 5g? Of course there was mass in the wrench and all as well to dissipate, but over say, 3 seconds, youre talking 60kJ into 5g. Even with the body and tools considered in, which I cant easily calculate, there is a LOT of energy dissipated through that ring!

So your ring notionally got to be hotter than you can imagine!

Can you characterize the burn as degrees? 1,2,3? Is there blistering? Charred flesh? I agree that given the combination of super hot, metals and electricity, nerve damage and similar things may be a consideration. Generally it takes around 48V for electricity to overcome the natural skin dielectric, but the fact that you claim possible electrocution means Id be real careful, because you may have burned the skin, electrocuted through the blood conductivity, and then charred the flesh back closed.