[Devil_Anse]

Take a hair and wedge it into the middle of a pair of needle-nose pliers. Leave it there for a while. Come back later, and try very carefully to extricate the hair from the pliers w/o breaking the hair. You might succeed, but chances are the hair will have at least one weak spot on it, the spot where it was stuck in the pliers. It may also have a couple of stretched places on it, where you pulled it, while trying to get it out of there. The weak spot, or a stretched spot, might break.

[CurlyDave]

Take a hair and wedge it into the middle of a pair of needle-nose pliers.

The news reports said the hair was "on" the pliers, not "in" the pliers. I completely discount any reports saying the hair was "wrapped around" the pliers. How do you wrap a 1" hair around a pair of pliers?