Dear readers of BME, let it be known that I intend this experience to be a cautionary tale. I'm sure some people will read it and say: "Well, DUH, I could've told you that!" And yes, you're probably right. It was foolish, but I personally know several people who this has happened to as well, and let me tell you, now from personal experience, that no matter how well you think you can protect it, don't take piercings to mosh pits. Just don't.
At A Glance Author J. Goat 13 Contact J. Goat 13@bme.anon IAM me-vs-metaldetectors When Three months ago Artist Brooks Studio DFX Location Edmonton, AB It happened one cold and snowy winter day... I had accompanied a good friend of mine to her piercing appointment to have a sternum surface piercing. Everything went well, it looked great, she felt good, hugs all around and such. It just so happened that we were there on a day when the new apprentice, Brooks, was piercing. As he had not yet done an inverse navel piercing and I happened to be there, I volunteered my body on a whim. I hadn't had piercings since I removed my poorly self-done lobes a few years earlier, and I was anxious to get more. Also, I didn't personally know any other men with pierced navels, so I thought it'd be kind of cool to get a less-common-in-men type of a piercing. Everything went smoothly and according to standard procedure, and half an hour later, I walked out with a bejeweled belly and a big smile on my face.
Fast forward 2 months...
Healing up to this point had been entirely uneventful. No irritation, no infection, virtually no crusties at all. In fact, if I didn't continuously hear about how navel piercings take forever to heal, I would have thought that it was completely healed by now. (Maybe it was?) Whatever the case may have been, I had tickets to the Headbanger's Ball tour as it passed through my town. Knowing full well that there would be bumping and banging, I went to the concert with my piercing's health and safety in mind, deciding that I would remain either off to the side or right in the front, as to avoid the constant assault of crushing bodies against mine. As it turns out, my tactics were less than effective.
I held out quite well for the first two acts, but when the third - Arch Enemy for those of you who are metal fans - came on, the crowd went out of control, and since I am not a large guy, I was quickly swept back from my spot of relative safety up against the security fence and back into the swirling chaos of the circle pit. As I was smashed from side to side, unable to escape and unable to keep my balance, I started to feel a sharp, burning pain in my abdominal region. I was lifted up before I fell and hoisted on top of the crowd. Usually, I'm all for crowd surfing, but at this point in time, it was not looking good. The trip back across the crowd and over the fence to safety was not pleasant, as my now brutalized piercing sustained more and more abuse.
As the band wrapped up their act and I stood much further back in the crowd, suffering and moaning, I decided to make my way to the bathroom and evaluate the damage. Upon unzipping my vest and lifting my shirt, I looked down. I was dismayed and shocked to see my poor navel piercing, once healthy and happy, now bleeding profusely and barely hanging on by a thin strand of skin. I packed the area with paper towels to prevent any more blood from getting all over my clothing and sat in the back for the last band. The worst, however, was not over.
I dragged my sorry corpse into the house at about one o'clock in the morning, dead tired and badly in need of a shower and some sleep. Unfortunately, I had a nearly torn out piercing to deal with. My plan was to quickly remove it, clean and bandage the wound and take care of the rest the following day. Why can't things ever be that simple? The first item on the agenda was to thoroughly clean the area. I did this with a sea salt solution, spiked with a bit of rubbing alcohol to ensure a good, disinfecting clean. That was the easy part. Then came the attempted removal of the jewelry. To make a long and painful story short, I could not, for the life of me, remove the bead that held the curved barbell captive in my flesh. Determined to remove it and quite upset about the whole affair (I should have just waited and gone to a piercing studio the next day) I found a pair of wire cutters in the garage and proceeded to cut the bead off. I'm not sure how many of you have attempted to use a pair of electrician's wire cutters to slice through a 14ga piece of stainless steel, but let me assure you, it is NOT easy. When I finally exerted enough pressure to cut the piece, it literally shot the bead into the drywall. During this whole ordeal, I had, of course, contaminated my piercing and made the wound even worse. It probably would've been easier and less painful to tear it the rest of the way out. Another round of disinfecting sea salt and alcohol, and I was off to bed with a wad of gauze taped to my stomach. So marked the end of my navel piercing.
The moral of this story, in case you hadn't figured it out yet, is to take better care of body piercings than I did. This may seem obvious, or even ridiculous, but when you're worried about keeping piercings and you want to go to a place where there will be teeming, crushing masses of bodies, stay in the back where it's safe. Your piercings will thank you.