GOLD WEDDING RING FOUND IN HUDSON RIVER, QUEENSBURY, NY
Matt called me and told me the story of how he lost his gold wedding band in the Hudson river. In short, he was standing on the end of the dock and went to catch a football and he felt his ring slide right off his finger. The ring fell into the river about 7 feet deep. He knew exactly where it fell, but after searching for a couple of hours with goggles he was unable to locate it. The bottom of the river was full of deep muck so it was impossible to see the ring or much of anything else. That’s when he called me.
I drove the hour to Queensbury the next day as it was too late to go that same day. I took a friend with me who happened to be visiting which was a good thing because this was going to be one of the most difficult searches. We are both lifeguards and good swimmers but the difficulties seemed endless. Visibility was poor, the ring was in the muck, the current was strong and staying down 6 feet in a mostly vertical position was near impossible. We didn’t have any scuba gear, only my mask. It would have been near impossible to use the big detector down there so I only used the hand probe. I located the ring with in the first five minutes, but the retrieval under such conditions was extremely difficult. Marking the spot, relocating the signal, fighting the current, drifting under the dock and having no reference of where your body was in the darkness once you were down there and becoming hypothermic were all obstacle that we had to overcome one way or another. You would have to have been there to fully understand the situation. Long story short, two hours after locating the first signal we finally were able to scoop out the ring in the scooper. The relief and joy we felt were priceless. I had the great pleasure of calling Matt that evening and telling him the good news. He was elated. Since he lived in another state I shipped him the ring the very next day. I told him, « no more football on the dock! » 
