People with rings stuck on their fingers have needed help from Norfolk firefighters eight times since August - with three of the incidents apparently coincidentally happening in North Walsham.

Now fire chiefs are urging people in difficulties not to make their local fire station a first port of call when seeking help to remove jewellery.

Statistics show that over the past six months firefighters have dealt with ring removal incidents at fire stations in King's Lynn, Carrow, North Earlham, twice at North Walsham, once at a Walsham resident's home, and twice at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital,

Last week a woman in North Walsham with three rings stuck tight on one finger was referred to the fire station by a local jeweller. 'The jeweller couldn't remove all three at once – which we could,' said a fire service spokesman.

'Most hospitals do have facilities to remove rings such as gold and silver but on occasion they need to remove a titanium ring or such like and they need our specialist equipment.'

He added: 'We don't offer a ring removal service and would not advise anyone to turn up at a fire station in the first instance, but we do remove rings if there is a genuine reason why a hospital, GP or jeweller, for example, can't do it. In the vast majority of cases there is a medical reason why we intervene.'

The spokesman suggested that the comparatively high number of North Walsham incidents could be because there was no Accident and Emergency unit nearby.