A Minnesota woman who mistakenly flushed her wedding ring down the toilet 13 years ago finally got it back this month.
In March, wastewater treatment workers with the Twin Cities’ Metropolitan Council found the ring buried in grit and muck next to a chisel and a clamp while working at a plant in Rogers, about 25 miles northwest of Minneapolis, the council said in a video.
Metropolitan Council’s general counsel returned the ring to its owner, warning her that the ring looks much different from what she remembers.
But as soon as the ring’s owner, Mary Strand, saw it, she knew it was hers.
“That’s my ring,” Mary said in the short video. “Oh my gosh. This is my ring. It’s nice to see it.”
How the ring was lost
Her husband, David Strand, gave her the ring on their 33rd wedding anniversary, local television station WCCO reported.
The ring wasn’t the perfect fit, which led to her losing it.
According to Mary, she was in the family’s downstairs bathroom 13 years ago, reached over to flush the toilet and the ring fell in.
“I’m watching this ring swirl,” she recalled in a video speaking to the council. “I dove for the ring. It went down the drain.”
She called her husband, who she co-owns a sewer and drain cleaning business with. He searched the toilet, shaking it to see if the ring was stuck inside.
They even ran a camera down the toilet to find it but saw nothing, so they “wrote it off,” said her husband David.
How did the couple get the ring back?
John Tierney, a maintenance manager for the Metropolitan Council, found the ring and set out to give it back to its owner, reported WCCO, which covered the finding when it first happened.
Mary’s daughter called her to tell her the news once she saw the report.
“Mom you’re never going to believe this but I just saw Frank Vascellaro do a story about your ring,” Mary recalled her daughter saying, WCCO reported.
The council said it received tons of calls about the ring, so jeweler Paul Hartquist took a look at it and eventually, they realized it belonged to Strand, Metropolitan Council said in its video.
Tierney said the calls they initially got about the ring gave him hope they’d find them.
“I was getting pretty optimistic that it is a good opportunity that we would find somebody, and I’m glad for these two,” he said.
Mary said she thought she’d never see the ring again. This October will mark 46 years that they’ve been married, she added.
Now that she has it back, she’s excited to wear it again. It’s not quite ready yet though, she said, telling WCCO she wants to get it reset.
“I’m just glad to have it back,” she told the outlet.
More USA TODAY coverage
Family:Grandpa goes viral for filming Peppa Pig adventures for dejected 5-year-old granddaughter
Kindness:Alone and grieving at the airport, 2 strangers comforted her. Now she needs to find them.
Reunited:‘Where I was supposed to be’: US man taken as infant in illegal Chilean adoption meets lost family
Animals:This dog wandered the streets of Detroit after her owner died. She now has a foster home.
Doggos:‘Our longest resident ever’: Donatello the pit bull looks for forever home after 4 years in shelter
