A father in Wichita, Kansas shared a photograph on social media last month that has quickly gone viral, helping raise awareness for hair tourniquets — a medical condition in which a hair or thread finds itself wrapped tightly around a toe or finger, placing the digit at risk of damage.
The rare medical condition can, according to Medscape, result in not only pain and injury, but the loss of an appendage.
In a warning to other parents, Scott Walker shared a photo of his daughter’s toe on Facebook. In the photo, one of his daughter’s toes appears obviously swollen, which her father alleges to be the result of a strand of hair wrapped tightly around her toe.
The photo, which was shared on January 21, was taken approximately 45 minutes after the strand of hair was removed by the child’s mother with the assistance of a magnifying glass and tweezers, according to Walker’s Facebook post.
Walker noted in his post on social media that while the hair did manage to cut through his daughter Molly’s skin, “it could have been worse” had it been left untreated for much longer.
Relaying a physician’s warning, Walker wrote on Facebook:
The doctor told me, for future reference, to always check the toes if the baby is inconsolable.
In the case of Molly, Walker indicated in his now viral post that he was with his family when Molly began screaming, which he noted to be “nothing out of the ordinary.” However, this time, things were a bit out of the ordinary as upon removing her socks to cool her down, her parents noticed her swollen toe. Upon further inspection, it turned out to be the result of a hair tourniquet, which Newsday reports to be more commonly referred to as a “toe tourniquet” in the medical world.
Walker’s post on Facebook has received over 32,000 shares and more than 22,000 comments since it was posted on January 21, 2016.
