Teen loses finger at rave, keeps dancing 'because the bass was hard'

An Instagram photo shows the damage a raver did to his hand. Photo/Instagram

Unwavering hedonism is alive and well in a disused sorting office in Croydon it seems, where a 16-year-old partier "skanked it out for half an hour" at an illegal rave after accidentally severing his finger on the dance floor.

"Rave f***** me up #rumnbass want my finger back...#sh*t #happens," the reveller wrote on Instagram, alongside a picture of him holding a rollie cigarette with his four remaining fingers.

Astonishingly, given the setting of the accident and the fact he partied on undeterred, 16-year-old Josh claims he was sober at the time of the injury.

In an interview with Vice, he explained exactly what went down:

"Well, at about 1AM we were up in the house room, but I don't really like house so I was waiting for the drum 'n' bass to kick in. As soon as I heard it, me and my mate went down there. Five minutes in, the fire alarm starting going off and everyone was like, "Rip it off! Rip it off!"

"So I thought I'd give it a go. I was completely sober at the time. I jumped up, grabbed it and my little finger got caught in the case because it was all broken, and as I came to rip it back down, my little finger got ripped off completely."

Asked what he did next, Josh replied: "I looked at my hand and my little finger was gone - the bone was sticking out. It's the weirdest feeling; one second you're fine and your little finger is there, and the next second it's gone. It shoves reality up your backside.

"I was in so much pain and shock that the first thing that hit my head was the beat and the bass. The bass was hard, so I just ripped off my top, wrapped it around my finger and tied it up as tight as I could and skanked it out for half an hour.

"My mentality was, 'I've only been here for an hour, I've paid £10 for this night, I've lost my little finger - am I seriously going to go? Nah, I'm going to skank until I can't skank any more.' After that, my mate dragged me down to the paramedics."

The boy asked paramedics if he could just be bandaged up and "rave on", but was told he needed to go to hospital immediately.

Pressed as to why he persisted to dance after losing a digit, Josh said: "Well, what can you do? There are fit girls around you, the bass is hard, the music is popping. I didn't want to be the sore thumb sticking out - or the sore pinky - so I was like, "F*** it, let's skank on and enjoy it."

Friends later told him that a "bunch of stoners found [his] little finger and were playing catch with it."

Read the remarkable full interview with Vice here.

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- Independent