A waitress who got a shard of glass in her finger while cleaning was adamant there was still something in there—and three and a half years later, she got her proof in a wild way.
Cristina Adame, from Aurora, Illinois, told Newsweek she was working at a restaurant years ago, when she accidentally got “shards of glass in my index finger while trying to clean broken glass debris that was at our cup and soda station.”
“My boyfriend had tried to remove whatever was left, and we thought for sure that it was all out,” she said—until October 2024, when she “started getting sharp pains in my finger,” leaving her incapable of using it properly.
At the same time, “a large bump formed on the side of my finger, along with what looked like a small dot of dried internal blood in the middle.”
Concerned, Adame went to a doctor, but was assured her it was not glass, as she “insisted it was,” but instead a herpetic whitlow that would heal within a few weeks, though they advised her to get a second opinion if it did not heal.
A herpetic whitlow is a contagious skin infection featuring painful blisters on the skin by the fingernail, caused by the herpes simplex virus. It should go away on its own, but may require antivirals, according to Cleveland Clinic.
Things appeared to calm down, but in March 2025 the same issue arose, and “an even larger bump” formed in the same spot on Adame’s finger, and she sought a second opinion while giving them information on her previous visit.
This time, the doctors cut into her finger—not directly into the bump, but into where the speck of dried blood was—and found no glass.
Just when it appeared Adame would never get an answer, weeks later she was washing dishes with hot water when she noticed a small hole “open up on the side of my finger.”
The hole appeared to be bigger the following day, and Adame took matters into her own hands.
“I run to my bathroom to use the end of a floss pick to try and open the hole up more. I finally am able to see the hole more clearly—and I bite the excess skin flap covering the hole.
“That is when I felt, and heard a loud crunch! I press down on my finger, and lo and behold comes out the glass of three years!”
She shared the wild story to her TikTok account @c.marie777 on April 11, where a video showed the shard of glass sticking out from her finger. Adame told the backstory, before finishing: “Lo and behold y’all, the glass from three years ago… literally popped out.
“This is glass from three years ago! How am I still alive?”
There are dangers to leaving glass in the body, including tetanus and other infections such as cellulitis and MRSA.
A small splinter of glass may be safe to leave in the skin as the body should naturally get rid of it as it sheds skin, according to a medically-reviewed article from WebMD, however you should consult a doctor if redness is spreading around the area, the area is swelling, or you have not been able to remove the glass for 12 hours—or in Adame’s case, three years.
TikTok users were shocked by the story, with Adame’s video viewed more than 3.6 million times, as many shared their own stories.
“Our bodies are so cool,” one user wrote. “My dad had shrapnel coming out of his body for my whole childhood after he got back from serving in the army.”
Another recalled: “I cut my hand while cutting avocado and a year later after it healed my body pushed out a tiny piece of avocado skin.”
“I sliced my hand on a broken window a couple of years ago and still have little bits of glass pop out,” one said—and as one detailed: “I have a piece of pencil lead in my palm that got stuck in elementary school 17 years ago.”
Adame told Newsweek that since the glass finally emerged, “my finger has healed very nicely and I have no more pain [or] discomfort, finally, after three long years.”
The post Waitress Cuts Her Finger on Glass, Three Years Later She Learns the Truth appeared first on Newsweek.
