Every season, Fox’s “Hell’s Kitchen” teases viewers by casting a kitchen full of people who could barely flip burgers at a bus station lunch counter, let alone run a fancy restaurant. This gives chef Gordon Ramsay a chance to yell and hurl pots and declare them bleeping donkeys before throwing them out. But every season, there’s a ringer or two — someone who’s skilled and talented enough to deserve to win.

This season, that person was Dave Levey, 32, of San Diego (originally Chester, N.J.), who broke his wrist early in the competition and was advised to go home but didn’t. Instead, he was a ball of fire in the kitchen, chopping and carving and cooking better with a cast halfway up his arm than most of the competition did with two good hands. Talk about winning with one hand tied behind his back.

Levey was declared the winner in Tuesday night’s leaner Season 6 finale, which didn’t call for the two finalists to decorate and run restaurants as before. In second place was the also-worthy Kevin Cottle of Middletown, Conn. Levey’s prize is a job at the Araxi Restaurant in Whistler, British Columbia, the site (with Vancouver) of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

"Hell's Kitchen" winner Dave, minus his trademark cap.