Living in shelters and in disaster situations, people face many challenges and stresses in their daily lives. In the midst of this situation, other issues may take precedence, so they may not have time to notice how tight the rings are.
As about a month has passed since the earthquake, some people at evacuation centers have noticed that their rings have become tight and have attempted to remove them, but they are unable to do so.
Once noticed, it became a new source of stress. With gentle massaging by the HuMA nurse, the ring was finally removed. The victim was very moved and said, “I’ll give you this ring!” This showed how stressful the tightness of the ring was for her.
Another person had been unable to remove the ring, although the HuMA nurse had continued to massage her hand with oil. However, the person bruised her hand, causing rapid swelling and strangulation of the ring. Finding it difficult to remove the ring anymore, we borrowed a ring cutter from the hospital and were finally able to remove the ring by amputation by HuMA doctor. Not only the evacuees, but also we were involuntarily moved to tears.
We would like to continue to be there for the victims with empathy so that we can remove some of the emotional burden from them.
