Key Fob Lost On Old Orchard Beach Maine, Found With A Metal Detector And Returned To The Owner
Recovery and Return #40
On Thursday morning, June 20, 2024, I arrived at the beach, in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. I was searching for a lost necklace, but didn’t have a lot of time, to complete the search. I had a previous commitment, in Norway, Maine and I needed to leave the beach, no later than 7:00am, in order to make my appointment. It was now 5:00am and I got straight, to the search. It was a fairly large area to search and I knew, I would not be able to finish, until the next day.
As I searched the area, I was performing a vertical grid search,to the beach. That is, I would start my search, near the dune/seagrass and search towards the water, turn around and start the search, back up to the seagrass area. As I was searching, I found the usual suspects of trash, coins and to my surprise, a Key Fob. The Key Fob had no name of ownership on it, but it did have a # on it. Perhaps an apartment, condo or hotel room number. The search continued, until I had to leave and unfortunately, no necklace was found. I will return to continue the search, in the area I wasn’t able to complete.
I now had to find the owner, of the Key Fob. I called the Old Orchard Beach Police Department and they had no record, of someone making a report, for a lost Key Fob. The OOBPD, took my information and said if anyone calls, they would give them my contact information.
I decided to post the missing fob, on my Facebook Page, The Ring Finders of Maine, along with 5-6 other local Facebook pages. I did not show the number, on the fob, and asked for the number to be revealed and if correct, I would personally guarantee the return of the fob. Almost immediately, I started getting tips that it looked like a Key Fob, that belongs to Grand Victorian Hotel Condominium. The Grand Victorian is an oceanfront beach property, that is at the base, of the OOB PIER.
One of the messages was from Ryan and said “Hello, I am the Manager, of The Grand Victorian. Unit # *** recently lost keys, so I’m hoping, these are the ones”.
I replied, “Ryan, This is fantastic! The # is ***”. Ryan gave me the correct 3 digit number and I knew we had found the owner.
I told Ryan that I would swing by The Grand Victorian, once I returned, from Norway, around 4:00pm to 5:00pm and return the key fob. Ryan told me that if he wasn’t there, there would be staff available and I could return the fob to them. I arrived at The Grand Victorian and Ryan was not there. I was able to talk to and return the key fob, to Bill. Although I was not able to meet the owner of the key fob, Bill told me that they would be ecstatic to have the fob back in their possession.
So, what started out as a search for a necklace, turned into a very hectic day, with me being able to return someone’s key fob. A hectic but very satisfying day and another smile on my face.
Julia and her husband Dave are vacationing in western Michigan this week from their home on the eastern part of the state. She was at the concession stand and took her ring off and put it in a side pocket on her purse. She then headed down the deck walkway to the beach where they sat on the beach. Hours later she looked in the pocket for her ring and it was not there-pocket was not fully closed. I met Dave at the beach and we started off down the walkway and then searched in the sand down the dune to where they were sitting on the beach. Searched about a 20 ft x 20 ft area where they were sitting with no luck. Headed back up the sandy dune toward the walkway again and searched that area more thoroughly finding a penny, a tent stake and a pull tab. I gave Dave the pinpointer and he was checking and finding all of the targets. Just about ready to give up but decided to search the edges of the deck walkway where the sand had blown up. The walkway has large gaps between the boards but the sand has blown up along the edges so I started to search that edge. With all the nails and bolts in the deck this was not an easy task. Toward the top of the walkway the deck turns into concrete but still has the wooden fence. Now the concrete has rebar in it and there are still nails and bolts in the fence. Just by chance I notice a slight change in the noise coming from the rebar and the nails and I had Dave check this one spot next to the fence.
Eileen called just as I had gotten out of the dentists office, wondering if it would be possible to come and search for her I-Phone that slid off the roof of a car, and landed somewhere alongside the roadway. She explained that she had put the phone on the roof of the car, and said goodbye to her company. Forgetting the phone was on the roof she went inside, and her company drove off. The following day she realized the phone was missing, and realized what had happened. She contacted her friend hoping he had picked it up prior to leaving the night before, which wasn’t the case. They had finally decided it must have slid off the car roof and landed somewhere on the side of the road. Using the find my phone app. they found the last known location of the phone before it died, where they searched for 4 days without any luck. That was when she decided to call in a professional recovery expert. We made arrangements to meet on the side of the roadway that afternoon. It was there Eileen went into more detail about HOW important this phone was, as nothing was backed up to the cloud, including over 6000 pictures, that were absolutely unreplaceable. This area was right in front of a big housing complex, that had manicured grounds with fences and pristine walking paths. I was praying it didn’t fall off there as the grass cutters had recently cut the lawn, and it would have shredded it to bits, had they ran it over. I instructed Eileen to go into the management office, explain what happened, and ask if possibly the phone was turned in. While she was in doing that I covered the entire area on both sides of the road, and all the landscape, with no luck, just as I had figured. Standing back, looking in the opposite direction, the curve in the road looked ever so inviting of an area, for a phone to slide off the roof. I walked back covering everything from the road in about 10′ with no luck. Then I turned around and continued back along the tall weeds, and wood line. Right along the weeds, just inside of where the mowers cut, I received the loudest broken signal from my metal detector, that I know ever to familiar, would be her cell phone. Sure enough BINGO!!!! I had her phone. I decided to record the moment when I returned her it, and needless to say, what a heart filled experience it was, reuniting Eileen with over 6000 photos, which covered many years of her life prior, to this almost tragic mishap.