When Renee called me I could immediately tell by the tone and stress in her voice that she had lost something and needed help. I listened to her explain how she lost her heirloom engagement ring down by their dock and how she and her husband had looked and looked and in frustration finally decided to call someone for help. So after hearing her story I assured her that her ring was there and I would try my very best to find it for her.
I packed up my car with all the essentials…my ATMax metal detector, pro pointer, scoop, floating sifter, flags, extra batteries, etc and headed to Renee’s home. I am always very excited when an opportunity comes along to help someone and I try my hardest to think of anything and everything that I could possibly need to help me in searching and finding someone’s lost ring.
An hour later I pulled up to Renee’s beautiful home and was met by a lovely young lady with tear stained face who was none other than dear Renee. I followed her around to the back of her house and down to the dock area where I could see that a bunch of fresh dirt was pushed here and there and also a few of the boards from the boardwalk were taken up as well. Renee explained how she had pulled some weeds from the shallow water and thought maybe her engagement ring had come off in the water somehow. After pulling a few weeds she proceeded to move some boards from along side of the boardwalk area. One of the boards was covered in fire ants and as she picked up the board the ants began crawling all over her hands and her immediate reaction was to throw the board and shake her hands free of the ants before they could start biting her. And that flinging and shaking action made her rings go flying off of her finger. Thankfully her wedding ring landed on the boardwalk in front of her but her platinum, heirloom, engagement ring was nowhere to be found…it just disappeared! She let out a scream and frantically started to look through the grass and along side the boardwalk and in the fresh dirt. Her husband even bought a low end metal detector and searched the area but came up empty handed. In desperation Renee decided to go online and look for « Help me find my ring » and up came theringfinders.com and one of my stories. She was given hope as she read a few of the posts and thought maybe I could help find her lost ring.
So I began by scanning Renee’s platinum wedding ring with my Garrett ATMax metal detector to get an idea of the numbers and type of signal I needed to listen for. There were allot of junk targets here and there and most of the items registered too deep in the ground to be her ring. Recently lost rings will normally give a good, sharp, clean signal and will only be an inch or two deep in the grass at the most. Unless of course they get stepped on or are laying on edge somehow. I always check out any signal that registers even close to what I am looking for because many times pull tabs, nickels and pieces of aluminum can sound just like a ladies ring. 20 minutes later I got a really nice, shallow, repeatable signal in the thick grass at the edge of a large Bald Cypress tree and there was Renee’s lost engagement ring. I held it up and said, « Hey, hey, hey!! » and Renee could not get to me fast enough to claim her precious lost ring! What a relief and joy spread across Renee’s face!
It was an honor to help Renee and her husband and hopefully her ring will continue to last for many more years.
Lost a ring or something valuable? Or maybe you would like to know what is hidden in your yard or whatever happened to Grampa’s buried coins? Give me a call?
Mike McInroe…glad to be a part of theringfinders.com