A woman had to have her £2,000 engagement ring cut off by firefighters after it got stuck and made her finger turn purple and numb the day after her fiancé proposed. Periesa Oromé, 30, panicked when she couldn’t slip the ring off the morning after her partner, Willis Oromé, 28, a knowledge management specialist, popped the question during a romantic proposal.
The wedding and event designer spent an hour trying to remove the ring - with soap, ice and a thread hack she found on YouTube - but nothing worked. After her fingers started swelling and turning purple, the couple rushed to their local fire station for help.
The firefighters had to carefully cut the ring off with emergency ring cutter plyers, to free it from Periesa’s finger. Luckily the ring was able to be resized at no extra cost and the couple have now married with their big day going without a hitch.
Periesa, of Beckenham, south east London, said: “I woke up in the morning and I just couldn’t pull the ring off. It got worse and worse as I tried to yank it off.
“But it didn’t take long for the whole thing to become funny - and the firefighters were laughing too. Willis had tried to measure my ring size from an old ring against his pinky finger as he wanted the proposal to be a surprise but it didn’t quite go to plan.”
Willis said: “I was convinced I got the right size. I just found it funny when it got stuck. It was a little worrying when her finger turned purple but thankfully it was all OK.”
Periesa and Willis met as friends at church. Both secretly liked each other for a year, before Willis finally took the plunge and sent her flowers.
“I didn’t know he liked me too until I got them,” Periesa said. “It was very quick from there as we’d been mates for a while.”
Willis decided to pop the question on their one-year anniversary of dating, taking Periesa to a restaurant she had wanted to go to. “We had a lovely dinner and then a tour of the restaurant after,” she said.
“The waitress asked if we wanted a photo and suddenly Willis got down on one knee and there were sparklers going off. It was so special.”
Willis had picked out a specially designed emerald cut ring - which Periesa had mentioned she loved back when they were just friends. “I couldn’t believe he remembered,” she said.
“When Willis put it on it did feel a bit snug, but I just thought it was because I wasn’t used to wearing something on that finger.” Periesa was able to slip the ring on and off that evening but found it was stuck when she woke up the next day.
“I was pulling and pulling it, but my finger just got more swollen,” she said. “I tried cooling it with ice and using thread to try and ease it off, but it wouldn’t budge.”
After calling the local jewellers the couple were advised to go to the Fire Brigade who would have the tools to cut it off. “I had to phone to say I would be late to work as my ring was stuck which was a funny way of my colleagues finding out I was engaged,” Periesa said.
“We knocked on the door of the Fire Brigade to help us. They were hanging around waiting to be called out, so they didn’t hesitate to help me.
“There were about three or four of them around me using a cutter to get make a clean slice to get it off. I was just laughing at this point.”
The firefighters were able to free Periesa’s finger and the ring was taken back to the jewellers to be resized for free. “It fits perfectly now,” Periesa said.
Despite superstitious comments indicating the incident means they shouldn’t get married, the couple wed in October 2019 in an intimate ceremony. “It was an incredible day, and nothing went wrong,” Periesa added.
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