A family that lost their loved one’s cremation box in a river was finally reunited with it — thanks to a magnet fisherman.
Lucas McGuire, 24, of Rome, Georgia, made the shocking discovery while rooting around the water for his lost line and magnet, which he had accidentally dropped while casting for metallic treasures at the bottom of the Oostanaula River.
“I was really upset because it was a $400 magnet. So I got my wet suit on, got in, and that’s when I found this box,” McGuire told The Post last week.
McGuire then set out to track down the dead person’s family.
“I got this feeling, this is someone’s loved one. Why was it in the water? I felt like I had to find them,” he said.
McGuire’s family happens to be in the funeral business and used an ID tag from the box to eventually locate the deceased woman’s kin.
The dead woman had been the matriarch of a Hindu family, and her husband had accidentally dropped the box containing her remains in the river while trying to scatter her ashes according to tradition.
“I found her obituary,” McGuire said. “What’s crazy is, I actually found the box exactly one year from the day she died.”
The fisherman had discovered the box in 2022 and got it back in the right hands months later, but only recently posted about the ordeal on his OutdoorsWithLucas Facebook page.
The woman’s family declined to speak to The Post, but her daughter told McGuire they were overjoyed to have the remains located.
“I am still so incredibly grateful for your honesty and kindness,” she told McGuire in a recent text message.
McGuire — who now works in the funeral business with his dad — said he is just happy he could be in the right place at the right time.
“When I posted this, I was like, ‘They’re going to think we planted this. It was fake.’ But it’s real,” he said. “It made me feel at peace, knowing they got closure.”
