File this one under brilliant ideas. 

The first brilliant idea? Going to a rave in an abandoned Royal Mail sorting facility. But I get it, underground music is cool. We’ve all been there before, in some form or another.

The second brilliant idea? Trying to rip the fire alarm from the wall when it goes off. Perhaps that wailing siren sound is an indication that there is some sort of flammable emergency, and anonymous ravers shouting “rip it off! rip it off!” might not be your best course of action. 

Never wanting to disappoint, a teenager named Josh started his evening with these two brilliant ideas. Of course, the latter resulted in the teen losing his little finger. His third brilliant idea was, of course, to stay put and enjoy the music. As he says, “the bass was hard.” 

Here’s the full story, as recounted by the legend himself:

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.

Ouch.

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.

When Vice asked the kid about why he kept dancing, he responded with the following:

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 pinkie – so I was like, “Fuck it, let’s skank on and enjoy it.”

Give this kid some props. He stayed true to the things he loves: fit girls, hard bass, and popping music. Skank on, brothers, skank on.

Â