AN ADVER delivery agent fainted in a pool of blood after losing a finger in a horrific freak accident.

While walking to his Park South home from a night out with friends, Brandon Ward leant against a fence by Lainesmead Primary School to steady himself.

When the 21-year-old tried to walk away from it, his finger moved - but the ring on it didn’t.

Brandon said: “The ring got caught halfway up the fence and as I turned around to leave, it ripped straight through the bone and veins.

“Luckily I didn’t feel much pain because I was quite drunk.

“I remember looking down at my hand and seeing the severed finger and all the blood, then asked my friend to call an ambulance.

“He thought I was messing with him until he saw the pool of blood on the floor, then I fainted.

“A doctor later told me that I’d lost five-and-a-half pints of blood and was an hour away from death.

“I came out of hospital 14 hours later after having an X-ray, sobering up, being transferred from GWH to John Radcliffe Hospital, and having a three-hour operation.

“They couldn’t reattach the finger because all the nerves were dead.”

Since losing the finger in the early hours of Sunday July 22, Brandon has found it difficult to adjust to life while his hand heals.

Brandon added: “I’ve been a delivery agent since I was 11.

“I miss doing the paper round every morning before going to work, but I don’t want to risk the newspaper ink getting into my bandage and infecting the wound.

“My mum, my friend and I all work at the Range and our boss couldn’t believe it when we told him what happened.

“I can’t do normal day-to-day things at the moment, which has been hard but bearable.

“What happened has petrified me, I’m still shocked by it all and it still hasn’t fully hit me yet.

“It’ll be difficult to get used to, especially with people always staring at the stump.

“The doctor said it was good that I kept laughing about it rather than crying, so that’s what I’ve kept doing because joking about it helps me cope.

“I’ve taken all my rings off now and my friends have done the same, they were all leaning on the same fence with me, I was just unlucky.

“I might need another operation and apparently it could take between six weeks to two years to fully heal.”

Brandon was grateful for the help he received during such a difficult time.

He added: “My friends called an ambulance and, according to them, a paramedic arrived after 25 minutes.

“Until the ambulance and police arrived, they kept talking to me and keeping me awake.

“One of them grabbed me as I fainted to stop my head hitting the floor.

“The paramedics kept asking me questions but I was slipping in and out of consciousness, I don’t really remember much of it.

“I can’t thank my friends or the paramedics and doctors enough, I’m very lucky to be here."

“People need to be careful, I never thought this could happen."