A ring embedded in a boy’s little finger for four weeks led doctors to wonder about parental neglect in this Australian case study.

The boy, aged eight, told doctors at Royal Darwin Hospital that the ring had become lodged in his little finger after his younger sibling bit him a month ago.

This likely resulted in the ring becoming partly embedded in the skin at the base of the proximal phalanx while the wound was healing, the doctors wrote in ANZ Journal of Surgery.

On examination, the surgeons found that the finger was neurovascularly intact with a mild localised infection and necrotic tissue surrounding the ring,