Diamond Wedding Ring Lost in Sand .. Dockweiler State Beach, CA. .. Found
Lucy and her husband Jason were at Dockweiler State Beach spending a few days in the RV park with their daughter and son. The day before contacting me Lucy had put her white gold diamond wedding ring in her back pocket. The same pocket that she keeps her IPhone.
Several times during their day on the beach Lucy had pulled her phone from her pocket to take photos. She told me that she had been in shallow surf and on the dry sand from the RV parking area to the water (towel line).
One problem was they had to check out of the park by noon. I was able to meet them just before check out time so she could show me the large search area. I also noticed that the beach rake had groomed a lot of the zone. I got a good reading of what could be at least a two hour grid search. We were confident that the ring had been dropped in the sand.
I explained that this would be time consuming and I had to help they lady in Marina Del Rey first as it should be an easy search. They were understanding and decided to wait in the day parking lot.
Returning in less than an hour, I went directly to the top of the dry sand. I picked an area at random that looked likely to start my process of elimination. Within 15 minutes the beautiful diamond wedding ring was in my scoop. Amazing, considering the huge area and the possibility the rake machine could have dragged it down the beach.
I called Lucy and Jason with the good news. They had just parked their RV and were walking out to meet me. Everything worked out well and there were plenty of smiles and hugs. Plus they could drive home before the LA traffic got congested.
Scott was playing with a football in the pool with his son and some friends and as they finished up he noticed his wedding ring, of 12 years, was not on his finger. So he immediately started searching in the pool thinking that was the most likely place where it probably slipped off while he was swimming. Scott is a certified diver and had no trouble checking all the corners and crevices where his ring could have been hiding–but he came up empty handed. That led him and his friends to search the deck area around the pool and along the fence surrounding the deck. And still no ring. Along the outside of the fence was a row of 5 foot hedge type bushes that gave the pool area some privacy and it was very likely that the lost ring could be hiding either in the bushes themselves or at the base of one of them. Scott and his friends spent a few more hours searching those areas and still could not seem to find his lost ring. The next day they packed up and headed home to the Tampa area and Scott was not happy to be leaving his wedding ring behind. He kept thinking that there had to be a way to find his ring, and that thought led him to search on Google « What do I do when I lose my ring? » and up came one of theringfinders.com stories. So Scott called me and explained what all happened and described the pool area quite well. I asked him to contact the Holiday Inn Express manager and ask for permission to conduct a thorough search of the pool area.
Jared wrote, « Hello! I wanted to reach out to let you guys know how grateful I am for Mike McInroe! What a blessing he is. Our lost ring story begins 33 years ago when my mother was pregnant with me. Due to the swelling she wasn’t able to wear her wedding ring anymore and being from the poor midwest, she felt awful not having her ring on and being pregnant. Despite their financial situation my father came home one day with a new, larger ring so she would have something to wear while she was pregnant. It wasn’t much but it meant the world to my mother! She decided while she was pregnant with me that one day she would give it to me or my spouse to wear when we were expecting our own. 33 years later, that day finally came. While she was visiting us for our baby shower in Orlando from the cold of Minnesota she brought the ring to give to my wife and to share that story with her. Heartbreakingly she never got the chance. The day she decided to give it to my wife we were all fishing off our dock in the canal. My mother was wearing the ring on her pinky finger and when she went to cast the rod–she dropped her precious ring of 33 years into the muddy water. Needless to say my mother was heartbroken– as was I for her! I searched in the water for an hour or two, to no avail, bringing up bucket after bucket of mud in a hopeless search. Meanwhile my wife was laughing at me–having no idea why in the world I would be in the water and having no idea about the ring or the family story. We did not find the ring and my mother flew home to Minnesota heart broken. (A few weeks later she bought and mailed us a ring that looked similar, feeling it was all she could do.) I was determined to find that ring! In my search to figure out how to build a pump and dredge system to dredge and sift the mud, I found theringfinders.com while searching for « How to find a ring underwater. » I emailed Mike on a Friday morning and by that evening we had a time set for the following day. The next morning I explained to Mike how the ring had been lost 4 weeks prior and showed him the dock and where we thought it might be. He said a little prayer as he climbed down the ladder into the canal and began his search. About 20 minutes later we heard the wonderful buzzing of his metal detector, picking up a strong signal. A couple of muddy scoops later and with a huge grin on his face, he pulled the ring out of his muddy sifter. Mike was an amazing spirit and a blessing to come and find our lost ring. We had our baby just a few short days after finding the ring and I can’t wait to surprise my mother when she comes down to meet the baby and to find out we found her ring–the ring she had been holding for 33 years!
