Oh, the irony.

"My wife is the strongest woman I know."
In that case, I think she could handle your losing a band of metal for the sake of your personal well-being.

"At first I was mad when he told me, but then I realized how lucky I am to have him in my life."
Emphasis on HIM! Not a ring!

...but somehow in the chaos that followed, they lost his ring.
Of course they did! They were cutting off his finger, for goodness' sake!

Rings can be replaced fairly easily. Fingers are much harder to come by.

I wonder how far this "devotion" would go. Suppose the soldier had a chest wound and needed surgery to stay alive. Further suppose that he had a tattoo of his wife's name (matching her tattoo of his name) over his heart (aww, how romantic!). By this reasoning, he'd have to die of his wounds rather than risk damaging the tattoo. Yeah, way to be "loyal" to your spouse.

I blame the doctors. I think it's unethical to let a patient lose a finger over a ring. Yes, in theory, an informed and rational adult should be able to withhold consent. But the guy was not in an ideal decision-making position.

In practice doctors and EMTs cut off clothing and jewelry over patients' objections all the time. Emergency medicine would grind to a halt if these relatively common objections were heeded.