WARNING - GRAPHIC PICTURES BELOW - DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU ARE EASILY UPSET BY PHOTOS SHOWING RAW TISSUE AND BONE

A HUSBAND had half of his finger ripped off by his wedding ring during a five-a-side football match.

Samuel James Bowles hopped over a fence to retrieve a football when his finger became lodged beneath wire mesh and tore away, leaving a mangled stump.

He said: "I landed on the floor and realised something was up because my face was warm from blood.

"My finger was squirting blood everywhere and it was when I tried to stop the bleeding that I realised I had no finger to grab. One of the lads on the pitch realised my finger had fallen onto the pitch.

"He picked it up and luckily he was a doctor so shoved it in ice and ran round to me."

The amateur footballer was rushed to University Hospital Coventry where he was told his remaining finger stump was so shredded that doctors wouldn’t be able to sew on the missing half.

Instead surgeons cut the finger down to the knuckle – while Samuel was awake – so that he had a neat stump.

When his wife Sarah, with whom he has a 10-month old baby, heard about the incident she hurried to his bedside.

Speaking about Sarah’s reaction, Samuel added: "She was cool about it. When she got to the hospital it was worse than she thought it was so even if she was annoyed for whatever reason, she couldn't help but feel sorry for me."

Despite the excruciating accident, Samuel appears to have coped quite well and even had a laugh in hospital.

He took a series of photographs of staff and visitors showing their hands with one finger hidden and has now asked people to refer to him as "four fingered Bowles".

Friend Philipp Schulze recently started a GoFundMe page called ‘Give a lad a hand’.

Scores of people offered their support by posting Instagram photos displaying just three fingers with the hashtag #4fingeredbowles.

One user wrote: “For some Bowles who lost a finger the other day. Much love from the other side of the pond.

“Think of it this way, less work when it comes to clipping your nails, discounts on manicures?”

Another user said they were upset about his loss: “Big Bowlesy lost his finger. The more I think about this the worse I feel.”

LAST WARNING - GRAPHIC IMAGES BELOW

Article reposted from Express written by Patrick Christys