Engagement ring lost on the beach, Beach Haven NJ, LBI, recovered by Edward Trapper, NJ Ring Finder
While I was at work, I received a phone call from Ashley. She explained that she, her husband David, and their kids had been enjoying a beautiful afternoon at the beach when she took off her ring to apply sunblock. It wasn’t until hours later that she realized it was missing, remembering she had left it in the cup holder of the chair. After unsuccessfully searching, they packed up and headed home. A quick Google search led them to find my name, and Ashley promptly gave me a call.
We agreed to meet on the beach, and she briefly described the ring. When I arrived, David met me at the dune walkover. Based on his recollection of where they had been sitting and the pictures he had taken earlier in the day, we determined the search area. It was getting dark, and David had to return to the local amusement park to be with his kids.
I searched the area, widening my grid with each pass but had no luck at first. Along the way, I found some coins and a ring that didn’t seem to match Ashley’s description—I thought she had mentioned an emerald and diamond ring, but the one I found had emerald-cut diamonds. I set it aside and kept searching for another 30 minutes, still turning up nothing.
Back at my truck, I reviewed the information, puzzled as to why I couldn’t find the ring. Looking again at the one I had recovered, I realized it was a gold ring with emerald-cut diamonds. Curious, I called Ashley to ask for a more detailed description. This time, she described the ring as being yellow gold with emerald-cut diamonds all around. My jaw dropped—I had already recovered her ring without realizing it!
I sent her a picture, and she was in shock. It was her ring! Since she was staying just a few blocks away, I drove over to meet her husband David, who was extremely grateful for the recovery. We talked a bit, took some pics, and headed our separate ways.
Its a beautiful afternoon in one of New Jerseys finest beach towns, Seaside Park. The oceans were calm, winds light and variable, which made for a perfect day of shell collecting. Dylan and his daughter set out to do just that. Unfortunately all the absolutely beautiful shells they had gathered together, just couldn’t make up for what had just happened. They were down at the very bottom of the tide line, by the drop off, picking up just one last shell, when Dylan decided to rinse off his hands and call it a day. At that very moment he watched his ring slip off his finger, and drop into the sand, just as a wave was rolling in. Even thought the ocean was as calm as we will experience here, Dylan had absolutely no luck over the next two days locating his beautiful wedding ring. When he called me and told me it had already been two days, and that it was just about dead low tide where his ring slipped off, I didn’t have a good feeling about the recovery, at that moment. What he did have in his favor was the fact that it had been dead calm, and was going to continue that way for the next few days. I told Dylan I would be on the beach for the next low tide which was day 3 of his ring being lost on the bottom of the ocean. I was out at 4 AM scouring every inch of the location he had marked with his phone in google maps, with not even one signal. Unfortunately I had prior obligations the next 2 days and would not be able to return until the following morning low tide. It was 5 AM or so, and here I am wondering around in the ocean again, but this time in about thigh deep water my machine sounds off a perfect low tone that you can tell almost in an instant was Dylan’s ring. I missed it in the first scoop, then BINGO !!!! I had his ring after 6 full days in the ocean. Believe me friends, this situation almost never exists in the state of NJ, but luckily for him it did that week. I messaged him asking for a detailed description, because all we had mentioned was white gold in our other conversations. I was pretty positive this was his ring, and the pictures confirmed that. I texted him pics and he was in total shock. We agreed to meet a few hours later for the monumental return.
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.
lifted the phone out of the water it was dinging like crazy after it locked onto Wi-Fi. These newer phones are incredibly waterproof.