Excitement over the success of the surgery is long past. Patient compliance is rapidly waning. His attention, and now yours, focuses ever more intensely on removing that K-wire, lurking coyly and subcutaneously. Another moment-of-truth is at hand. A mini moment for sure, but a vexing one, as this is the last significant act culminating the surgical phase of this patient's recovery.

Somehow you just can't seem to get a good enough grasp on that pin to remove it. At such pivotal moments the double-action pin removing pliers from Buxton can often depress the surrounding soft tissue just enough to obtain sufficient "purchase" on the smallest amount of stock for quick and easy extraction.

A shallow, longitudinal groove running up to the blunted end in each of its jaws prevents the pin from slipping laterally. Very small, nearly microscopic serrations within those grooves provide added grip to counter the rotational extracting forces. While the tips of the jaws are narrowed to as small as 2 mm, they retain the bulk necessary to endure the forces commonly applied to them.

Hand & Footnotes, Vol. 1, No. 3