Woman with the longest fingernails in the world breaks them all in a car crash



A woman with record-breaking 3ft fingernails is recovering in hospital after surviving a car crash in which all ten were all broken off.

Grandmother Lee Redmond is said to be devastated at the loss of her nails, which had not been cut for 30 years.

She has been hospitalised with serious but not life-threatening injuries after she was ejected from the seat of an SUV in the crash.



Scissorhands: Lee Redmond in 2006. Her record-breaking nails were lost in a car accident earlier this week

The driver of the 4x4 in which she was a passenger is in a critical condition. A friend said: 'Lee knows she's lucky to be alive but she's devastated.'

Redmond's nails hadn't been cut since 1979.

The Salt Lake City, Utah resident was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records, which claimed her nails measured a total of more than 28 feet long in 2008.

The longest nail - on her right thumb - was a sickening 2 feet, 11 inches.

Mrs Redmond, who once turned down £60,000 to have them clipped on live TV, has now lost her claim to fame.

In 2006 she said she was ready to cut her nails so she could care for her husband, who suffers from Alzheimer's.

However she changed her mind, insisting that the nails did not interfere with her husband's care - indeed, that they did not impact her daily life much at all.

She did have to care for the nails daily, soaking them in olive oil and cleaning them with a toothbrush.

And when, in previous interviews, she was asked the inevitable question about how she goes uses the bathroom, she replied: 'Very carefully'.



Police lieutenant Don Hutson said Mrs Redmond was thrown into the road when her car hit another vehicle at a crossroads. Her nails were all snapped off near the fingers.

Lieutenant Hutson added: 'She is conscious and is heartbroken over the loss of her nails.'

Redmond has been featured on TV in episodes of 'Guinness Book of World Records' and 'Ripley's Believe It or Not.'

