metal detecting in park Tag | The Ring Finders

Brian Rudolph, Lost Item Recovery Specialist (Land, Water, Sand, Snow, Leaves, Cliffs, Houses & Vehicles) Will Find Your Lost Keepsake! Call ASAP (301) 466-8644!

Rachel reached out to me after losing her platinum 1.5 carat yellow diamond engagement ring at Bohrer Park at Summit Hall Farm on July 13th, 2024. She and her husband Jonathan walked to the 30-plus acre land with their two children during an annual event called SportsFest. Youth entering grades K through 8 can participate in a variety of activities. Later that Saturday night, Rachel realized that she no longer had her priceless engagement ring on her finger. She was devastated.

The couple spent the next day searching the huge grassy park to see if they could recover Rachel’s irreplaceable diamond ring. It was nearly impossible to recount where they walked because there were activity stations for the children placed all over the sports fields and other locations throughout the endless acreage.

When they couldn’t find the ring out at the park, they tore their place apart to see if maybe Rachel lost her ring somewhere in their townhome. Sadly, all of their efforts led to no avail.

Later that Sunday evening, I received Rachel’s call for help. I spent a good amount of time on the phone getting all of the details from the couple in order for me to better process the story and come up with a game plan to help my desperate clients.

Two days later, on Tuesday morning, July 16th, I scheduled with Rachel and Jonathan for me to come to their Gaithersburg, Maryland home to start the search. The couple took me over to the park and we walked in the direction of where they remembered taking their children to the special event. It was a lot of territory that I would have to cover! I’m talking a lot! However, I was completely up for the challenge! We returned back to their house and I immediately checked the couch with special equipment, however, the ring was not in the furniture.

After applying much sunscreen and filling my red tool case with a cooler and other search accessories, I walked myself back over to the park to begin the hunt on grass for Rachel’s beautiful platinum yellow diamond jewel.

The day was so hot that temperatures reached over 100 degrees! I metal detected for a few hours but the only thing I came up with was a bunch of trash. Even Jonathan joined me over by one of the sports fields to lend a hand with grid positioning. A few hours later I had to go to another appointment, sadly leaving the property without recovering the ring at that time.

The next day, at noontime on Wednesday July 17th, I returned to the park and resumed my search for the engagement ring. I laid down my grid lines from one section of the grassy estate to the next section. Because it would take too long to grid all 30 acres of the property, I had to place a single grid line down and work on both sides of it every 100 feet. Then, I would move the grid line down another hundred feet and so on. I metal detected all over the sports field and along the sidelines. There was a fairly large hill that the family had walked down and back up again when they headed over to the community center. I searched a portion of that area and still nothing turned up.

The whole time that I was metal detecting, the concern came to my mind over and over again which had to do with the community center. The couple took the kids inside the center during the sportsfest and Rachel sat down on a bench in one of the hallways. There was a strong possibility that it was at that moment that the ring came out of her pocket and landed on the floor. So while I was doing all of the searching on the grass, there was always that question mark as to whether or not I was wasting all that time looking on the property when the ring potentially had already been found by somebody and pocketed.

I did another 3 hours that Wednesday and still I was not able to find Rachel’s beautiful diamond ring. I let the couple know that I would return again the following day to continue swinging my detector with the hope that if the ring had fallen out of Rachel’s short’s pocket out on the vast property, perhaps it still had not been found by anyone just quite yet.

The next day, Thursday July 18th, I made it back out to the search site around 3pm. I was determined to not give up even though my clients were starting to lose hope as time moved forward. Rachel brought one of her sons to the park and met me out on top of the grassy hill near the community center’s parking lot. She answered more questions regarding where the family had walked so that I could lay down some more grid lines. She and her son took one of my grid lines and placed the 100 foot tape in the direction of where Rachel believed they had all walked that past Saturday. As soon as they started heading back, I once again took out my metal detector and started gridding both sides the tape.

When nothing was discovered along the grid path that I had carefully scanned over, I metal detected a section of a smaller hill located above the main sports field. On our initial walk on the first search day, Rachel and Jonathan showed me a section of the hill between two trees where a trash can was located and they thought that that was a viable place to detect. I searched that area but did not find anything there. So, I told them that I would search to the left of that mid section and see if maybe they were actually farther to the left than what they remembered. Unfortunately, nothing panned out in that location either.

Afternoon turned into evening and I once again had to leave the search site for the third time. I still had approximately one hour left to search for the mystery jewel as part of what was agreed upon by both parties on my company contract. Therefore, I let Rachel and Jonathan know that I would plan to come out one more time to attempt to pull the missing ring from the huge grassy property.

Three days later, on Sunday July 21st, at approximately 3:45pm (8 days after Rachel had lost her treasured keepsake), I returned for the final time to search for Rachel’s beloved ring. I regretted not being able to come back any sooner to do more detecting and I knew that had to be hard for my clients to let a few more days to go by. They quickly were losing all hope of ever getting their special symbol of love back.

I focused on rechecking a couple of places that I had previously detected because I wanted to make sure that I didn’t miss anything. When the hour was up, even though I was done with all 6 hours that were contracted, I told the couple I would keep searching on my own time. I just had to know that I did everything I could before finally having to call it quits.

I continued to search for many more hours for the ring, explaining to my clients that they would not be obligated to cover the additional time that I expended out on the hot grass-filled property. I wanted them to know that I was volunteering the remainder of the time invested to hopefully discover Rachel’s ring that Jonathan had personally designed himself, completely custom made for his future bride at the time.

Once I completed scanning the ground over by a section of grass near the playground equipment, I decided I would return far over to one of the hills on the opposite end of the park where I had previously metal detected two sections of that space on two separate search days during the previous week.

I had searched the middle section between two trees where the trash can was located and I on another day I searched the left side of the left tree and did not find anything in that spot either. So, I decided to search the right side of the right tree just in case my clients did not remember that they were actually to the right of the trash can and not to the left end of it.

I started at the bottom of the hill where the sideline for the sports field was located. Rachel had remembered squatting down to help take off her son’s shoes so he could go play in one of the inflatable bounce houses. I had already metal detected that section at least a couple of times already but I decided to do it once more. Again, there was nothing discovered there, so I proceeded to metal detect the right portion of the hill, slowly swinging back and forth as I made my way up that area of the hill.

A few minutes later I reached midway up the hill and I received an excellent target signal. I did not find Rachel’s ring but I happen to discover a young lady’s gold ring that she must have received for her 15th birthday’s quinceañera celebration. The rose and yellow gold piece of jewelry was partially buried mostly in the dirt mixed with some random blades grass.

After placing my first treasure in one of my pockets, I continued scanning the hill, completely conscious of the fact that I was only a couple of « air » gridlines from finishing my long drawn out and very exhausting ring search. And then…I captured yet another curious signal. I knelt down to the ground and used my orange pinpointer to locate the exact spot of the target. I then moved some dirt out of the way and there it was! I couldn’t believe what I was staring at! It was a silver looking band with a large sized solitaire yellow stone on top! A beautiful yellow diamond to be precise! I found it! I recovered Rachel’s lost ring! I couldn’t believe it!

It was at that moment that I released so much emotion and physical relief! I truly couldn’t process within what I had just discovered! I was only feet away from ending the week’s long adventure out on all that grass and then it was over, literally at the final few seconds of possibilities! I recovered my client’s most sought after material possession and it would soon be returning to the finger that it rightfully belonged to! Amazing! I gave many thanks to the Lord for answering the prayer that I and my clients had initially lifted up towards Heaven just before starting the search.

I just sat on that hillside for a good while and let the reality of the moment fully sink in. I can’t fully express just how grateful I felt to have searched farther outside the box, deciding to metal detect the right side section of the hill! It turned out that Rachel and Jonathan misremembered the place where they stopped on that hillside. Rachel probably reached for her phone and the ring came out with her iPhone and there it fell to the ground at that very place where my machine eventually picked up its signal!

Within the next hour I surprised my clients with the most incredible reveal! Rachel cried and Jonathan was in complete disbelief with what they were being presented with. They had pretty much resolved within them that the ring was gone forever. Rachel had visited a local pawn shop in search of her missing jewel along with filing a police report with the county authorities. And yet, the true reality of the situation was that their 8-day nightmare was finally over!

Had I stopped searching after the contract’s agreed upon hours had been expended, the engagement ring would have never been held by Rachel’s hand ever again. Yes indeed, I am so very glad that God made me to be such a stubborn and passionate human being! With every ring search, it’s never over until it has to be over!

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