Lost Ring Found Deep in the Mud in Vermont Pond
9/4/21
A week ago I got a call from a guy who’s wife had lost her engagement ring while swimming. They were visiting Vermont from Connecticut. While here, they heard hurricane Ida was going to come ashore near their home. They decided to cut the trip a little short and go home to prepare for it. Before they left, they decided to take one last quick swim in the lake.
She knew her ring was fitting a little loose, so she checked it half way through the swim. When she got back near the dock she looked at her finger with horror when she saw the engagement ring was missing. She and her husband spent quite awhile searching with no luck. The bottom is thick with mud, rotting vegetation and weeds. So they headed out on their sad trip home.
That week they found my ad for The Ring Finders and gave me a call. I was available for a Saturday search, so they drove back from Connecticut and met me at the lake. I put on my wet suit, gathered up my underwater equipment and waded in. Once I realized how thick the mud was on the bottom, I knew it was probably going to be a tough search. I spent about 8 hours in the water that day using my standard underwater detector and only found some scrap metal and a few coins. I figured either the ring must be too deep in the mud for my metal detector’s signal to reach it, or that it was too far out in the lake for me to wade to. They also swam around for a long time trying to see it. Sadly, we gave up for that day. I told them I could try it again in a week or two.
They got permission from the camp owner for me to go back the following weekend. Unfortunately they were unable to come, so I went back alone. This time I planned to mainly use my mud probing system, which I knew would be extremely slow and probably would require many return trips. The odds were against me for finding it that day. The water was much colder and the wind was blowing hard. After about 4 hours, shivering from the cold, I was up to my chin in water and up to my shins in bottom mud, when I got a faint signal. I dug down several times, bringing up huge loads of muck and debris with the scoop. On the fourth scoop, getting real deep in the muck, I put the load on my floating sifter. There was a signal in the pile and I stirred through it with my fingers and felt something that felt like a ring!! I grabbed it, rinsed it and there it was! An absolute miracle to find it!! That ring was at least 10” down into the mud!
I went to shore, texted him a picture and got a huge disbelieving thank you. He said he would go show her the picture and send me a video of her reaction. It was the sweetest video, one of the best thank yous I’ve ever gotten! I offered to meet them tomorrow, half way, to give her the ring personally. After what she’d been through, I didn’t want to take any chances of it getting lost again by mailing it!
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