A bride-to-be’s acceptance of a restaurant proposal went from picture-perfect to catastrophic when she was bungled to A&E days just hours later. She was told that if she'd waited any longer to seek professional help, she would have run the risk of amputation.
On August 10, 23-year-old Iona Hadaway said yes to the marriage proposal from her then boyfriend of eight months, Jacob Bugliarello, 20, at an Italian restaurant in Crewe.
The corporate banker, who is originally from Winsford, was gifted an engagement ring that was too small for her, but decided to ‘force’ it on anyway because she was ‘excited’.
“I wanted the ring on,” she explained. However, when visiting both her and Jacob’s parents, Iona realised that jewellery was causing her finger to swell up because it was too tight.
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"We went to his [Jacob's] house, and his mum wanted to see the ring close up so I tried to take it off and it would not come off,” she recounted.
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"I was gutted but I was like, 'Can you just get it off because I've had enough now'."
Before seeking out medical help, Iona said she used Fairy washing-up liquid to lubricate her finger before wrapping a rope around it and pulling.
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She realised her engagement ring wouldn’t move, and quickly set off to Crewe Leighton Hospital’s A&E unit with her now fiancé.
Spending their first evening as a to-be married couple probably wasn’t what the pair had in mind - neither was being told that her finger probably would have 'died’ if she hadn’t attended the emergency room.
Explaining that she ‘could have lost [her] finger’, Iona said that experts discovered there was ‘no circulation’.
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"She [a member of hospital staff] said it's a good job I went when I did because if I'd have left it overnight my finger probably would have died.
"There was no circulation at all in my finger.”
After exhausting all possible methods, doctors were forced to cut the Brit’s engagement ring off.
Speaking about her lost possession - which Jacob bought in a size R because she wore another ring in the same size - the soon-to-be-bride confessed: "I'm engaged but I don't feel engaged because I've not got my ring on.
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"Everyone wants to see it and I'm like, 'I've only got a picture'."
She hopes that a jeweller can fix the ring.
Despite the initial bump in the road, wedding plans are still on for the couple, who met through a friend and began dating in January this year.
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The duo plan to tie the knot in 2027, and are currently focusing their efforts on purchasing a house.
"I thought he would do [propose] in September when we go to Turkey,” Iona admitted.
“But he decided to do it a bit earlier due to a family member not being well. We don't know if they're going to be around when it happens, so he did it a bit earlier.”
She added that she was ‘glad’ the getaway plan never got off the ground, remarking the trip would’ve also been marred by a trip to the hospital.
How to measure your ring size
If you want to avoid a similar fate to Iona, then accurately measuring your ring size before splurging is probably a good idea.
H. Samuel states that you need to grab some string and wrap it around the finger you plan to wear your ring on.
With a marker pen, mark the point where the two ends meet and then use a ruler to measure the string in millimetres.
Divide whatever number you get by 3.14 to get the diameter of the ring.
Then use the jeweller's ring size chart (as supplied above) to find your ring size.
The Goldsmith's guide says the best time of day to measure your ring size in mm is in the evening, as this is apparently when your fingers are largest.
Topics: Life, Health, Sex and Relationships, Dating
Ella Scott