Malaga’s multitasking firefighters tackle jewellery problems

MALAGA’S firefighters are multitaskers.

According to a report in local Spanish daily La Opinion de Malaga, not only do the local heroes put out fires and attend accidents, but recently they have been called upon several times to remove people’s rings.

In the past few months, they have removed four rings with professional cutters after the owners found their fingers too swollen to do so.

In a recent case, the newspaper reports, a middle-aged man had visited several hospitals and was eventually told to go to the fire department. He went to the main fire station in Avenida Martiricos in Malaga where two paramedics supervised while firemen attempted to remove the ring which was five centimetres wide, more than one centimetre thick, and made of steel. This made it impossible to use cutters and instead, they had to use a small radial saw.

They had to dampen the ring which kept getting hot due to the friction until they were finally able to remove the ring and send the man on his way with some cream to bring down the swelling.