The fire alarm sounded one morning in Deb’s Midvale apartment, and all 220 units were evacuated. The residents watched as the fire burned the roof of their building. More than six weeks later, Deb was finally allowed to return to her top floor apartment to see the extent of the damage. To put out the fire, the fire department had sprayed thousands of gallons of water into the attic, soaking the blown insulation and the drywall ceiling. The whole ceiling had collapsed, burying Deb’s apartment in up to two feet of soaking wet insulation, soggy drywall, burnt wood, nails, wiring, and garbage. Fortunately, other than the ceiling, her apartment wasn’t burned, but the smoke and water had destroyed almost everything she owned. She had a watch, several rings, and earrings on her dresser and nightstand, and when the ceiling collapsed, the insulation and drywall scattered and buried her jewelry. She found TheRingFinders.com and wondered if I could help her. Standard metal detectors are almost useless inside buildings, but I brought shovels, buckets, and my hand-held pin pointer metal detector. I would grab a handful of the mess, check it with my pin pointer, then, if there was no metal, toss the handful into a 5-gallon bucket. I filled her bathtub one bucket at a time, but I found her platinum wedding band, her 18K white gold ring, her diamond pendant, and finally, after several hours of searching, her precious watch.
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