Wedding Ring Recovery in a Palo Alto Park
Chris contacted me looking to get the ball rolling with Ring Finders because he had lost his wedding band in a park. The situation he described is all too common: he had taken his ring off and put it on a carabiner for safe keeping before playing sports. He remembered putting it on the carabiner along with a water bottle and he remembered having this assembly in tact when he left the field, but when he was back in the car and getting ready to leave he realized his ring was missing. So Chris reasoned that it was either in the car or on the field, and he decided to make one more search of his car before bringing me in for some assistance after his search proved unsuccessful. I was pretty confident we would find his ring based on Chris’ prior search and the clarity with which he described what happened.
He and his wife met me at the park this morning and reiterated what he did and the path he took to and from the car. He also revealed to me that he and some friends had previously searched the area both by eye and with a metal detector. We agreed to thoroughly search the beginning and end points of his path and to search the path he took if we didn’t find anything at the endpoints. Our search was starting to get a little longer than expected, to the point where I felt it was a good idea to change to a smaller coil with better target separation and also use slightly different settings on my metal detector that audibly accentuated surface targets. I was pulling up a fair amount of trash, and at one point even a junk stainless ring!
During my slow grid back to the start point, on the path that Chris took, I hit a very solid signal that was clearly right on the surface. And sure enough it was sitting right at the base of the grass, just hidden in the green and gold background. Chris and his wife were in disbelief when I exclaimed, « I got it dude! », as it seemed their hope was waning due to the prolonged search they had been through. We were all thrilled that our thorough search proved fruitful in the end.
