lostringsafetyharbor Tag | The Ring Finders

Lost Hearing Aid in Safety Harbor, Fl…Found and Returned!!!

  • from Dunedin (Florida, United States)

Steve Thomas

Dunedin Ring Finder   lostringdunedin.com

“It’s Only Lost Until I Find It!

Lost a ring or other metal valuable at the beach or in a grassy or sandy area? Jewelry slip off of you while working outside, playing with the dog or swimming? Please contact me ASAP at (843) 995-4719 or @dunedinringfinder. I offer a FREE metal detecting service, reward optional but appreciated upon recovery!

Paula was walking down the outside stairs of her second floor condo in Safety Harbor when she fell down the last few steps and landed hard and face first on the sidewalk. She had not been using the handrail with her hands full and was badly injured including bruises and cuts to her face and a possible fractured collarbone. After she was helped back into her home, Paula realized that one of her hearing aids was missing as a result of the fall. After receiving medical treatment and returning to her home, Paula’s good friend Carol and a family member helped search for the hearing aid in the area where Paula landed but they were unable to find it. Carol found me through social media and contacted me the next day to see if I could help Paula find her hearing aid.

I arrived at Paula’s condo and realized that the search area was very small but did include under the stairs and several areas with shrubs including shrubs that bordered the complex’s pool fencing. I scanned Paula’s other hearing aid for a reading on my Minelab Equinox 900 detector so that I would know exactly what to look for and as I expected, the signal was very weak due to the very small amount of metal in the hearing aid. I also tested my hand held pinpointer because I quickly realized that I would have to do most of my search with it as there was very little room for my detector coil. I began my search on my hands and knees with the pinpointer in the area of shrubs near the fence because it was in the direction of Paula’s fall and also shook the branches of the shrubs just in case the hearing aid was hanging from one of them. I then searched the shrubs beside the stairs and the leafy area underneath the stairs by probing with the pinpointer but no luck. After about 15 or 20 minutes, I walked up the last several steps and looked down towards the sidewalk where Paula had landed when I noticed several red spots on the left side opposite from the area where I had searched. As it turns out, these were blood spots from Paula’s cuts where she fallen and then tried to get up. Carol and Paula believed the hearing aid to be on the right side of the steps since it was in Paula’s right ear. I began a visual and pinpointer search under the shrubs on the left side and after only about a minute I saw the hearing aid laying on the leaves. Paula was thrilled to have her relatively new hearing aid back in her ear! Paula requested that I not take a picture of her smiling face due to the cuts and bruises suffered in her fall so you have mine instead.

Paula and Carol, thank you for contacting Steve Thomas, Dunedin Ring Finder and trusting me to find Paula’s hearing aid! It was a pleasure meeting you both!

Lost Texas A&M “Aggie” Class Ring…Found and Returned Four Years Later!!

  • from Dunedin (Florida, United States)

 


Steve Thomas

Dunedin Ring Finder   lostringdunedin.com

“It’s Only Lost Until I Find It!

Lost a ring or other metal valuable at the beach or in a grassy or sandy area? Jewelry slip off of you while working outside, playing with the dog or swimming? Please contact me ASAP at (843) 995-4719 or @dunedinringfinder. I offer a FREE metal detecting service, reward optional but appreciated upon recovery!

My wife and I recently spent a week in Texas with our daughter, son-in-law and two grandsons. Part of the trip was a three day beach stay in Port Aransas along with other family members on both sides including our son and his wife. Of course, any opportunity I have to do detecting on a beach I try to take advantage of it so I carried along my Minelab Equinox 900 with me.

While detecting on the beach at Port Aransas the first day, my finds had been a handful of coins, a bling ring, a bling earring and an assortment of pull tabs. After a few hours of this, I was about a half mile north of the property where we were staying when I swung my detector over a target in the wet sand about four inches down on mid tide. The number on the display and the tone in my headphones gave me indications that the target was probably a beer cap but when I scooped it out of the wet sand I was pleasantly surprised to find what appeared to be a small gold class ring! After a quick wash of the ring in the salty water, I could see that I had found a Texas A&M class ring from 2021 and the full name of the owner was inscribed inside! For those of you who don’t know how important the achievement of a class ring is to an Aggie grad, you can find out more by searching “Aggie Ring Tradition” and the “Aggie Network”. To say it’s a big deal is a huge understatement.

I returned to where we were staying and began my research. I found two people on Facebook who had the same first and last names as what was inscribed in the ring and who lived in that part of Texas but only one of the two had graduated in 2021. I reached out to her through Facebook messenger (her first name is Amber) but I did not receive a response. The next morning, I decided to post the find on a Facebook page called “Aggie Ring Lost and Found” and it wasn’t long before some of Amber’s family and friends let her know that her ring had been found! Amber then responded to me and of course was shocked that I had found it because she lost it while playing beach volleyball about four years before and had only had it about four months. She had given it up for lost and had purchased a replacement ring. I told her that I was surprised it was still there because of how many people metal detect on beaches now. Amber asked me if I could return the ring to her brother Matthew who was in College Station for his last semester at Texas A&M when my family returned from our stay at Port Aransas and I promised her that I would. The day after our family returned to College Station from Port Aransas, I met Amber’s brother Matthew and returned the ring to him so he could deliver it to Amber who was living and working in San Antonio.

Amber, I was so happy that I could return your precious Aggie ring to you!