My scout leader....
was a jolly ol' fella with a big bushy beard and more than a hint of a Brian Blessed look about him. He was also missing his left hand ring finger. In the four years I was in scouts he had lost his finger.....

In a shark attack,
When a car door slammed on it,
When it was shot off in the gulf,
When a croc bit him,
By cutting it off with a meat carver,
When he wrapped it in cheese wire and a mate pulled,
and about one hundred other stories depending on what day of the week it was.

The thing is the truth was far more interesting. My (now deceased) father loved diving and went diving with my old scout leader on the fateful day he lost his finger. Many years after I left scouts and told my father about the missing finger stories my dad couldn't believe he never actually told the truth as it was quite hardcore. Truth was they were diving and something under the water slipped and trapped his finger by the wedding ring between two metal pipes. They tried for ages to get his finger free but the air in his tanks was running low. My old scout master and bullshitter pulled out his divers knife and sliced off his own finger so he could save his own life.

Sometimes the truth is better than the lies
( Peej, Thu 29 Nov 2007, 20:56, 5 replies)

Nostalgia
I haven't heard that diver-cuts-own-finger-off chestnut for years. First time was around 1975, then there were a lot of occurrences around 1980. Nothing this millennium until now, though.
(snopesthetruth, Thu 29 Nov 2007, 23:28, closed)

finger
It could be the fact he is sick of explaining 'how did you lose your finger?'
I have a 2 inch impressive scar on my arm, and I've said many different explanations on how I did it, because it just becomes a joke after being asked 50 times.
(Nibi, Fri 30 Nov 2007, 0:11, closed)

Agreed.
"It could be the fact he is sick of explaining 'how did you lose your finger?'
I have a 2 inch impressive scar on my arm, and I've said many different explanations on how I did it, because it just becomes a joke after being asked 50 times."

I have a scar on my upper lip that is from a half-brick being thrown at my face the day before my 12th birthday. Not only am I sick of explaining where it came from, I also tell my lies to repress the childhood trauma :(
(hypnoticme is an anarcho-syndicalist commune, Fri 30 Nov 2007, 2:16, closed)

.
I have a little scar through my eyebrow, which only shows if I scowl. Looks good ;)
(misanthrope is so adjective he's verbing nouns!, Fri 30 Nov 2007, 13:26, closed)

I have a jagged scar on my leg
I tell people I got it falling off my bike, but the truth is that I was mauled by a bear at London zoo when I was a child.
(frankspencer, Mon 3 Dec 2007, 13:03, closed)