A wedding ring carelessly tossed away was found in 20 tons of trash at a New Hampshire transfer station — making it the third ring in two years to be recovered at that same location.
The lucky find happened after a frantic woman called the Windham Transfer Station last Wednesday alerting them that her wedding ring might’ve been thrown out, according to reports.
The woman told workers when her husband dropped off trash at the station, the kind of car he was driving and the type of garbage in the bags, General Services Director Dennis Senibaldi told WHDH.
The transfer station crew then got to work with the help of surveillance cameras.
“We were able to track when he was here, exactly what time he threw the trash out and where the trash in the trailer was located,” Senibaldi told the outlet.
The trash they were seeking was “literally the first scoop into the trailer,” he said.
“That’s 12 feet down from the top of the trailer that we had to dig through to find her one bag,” he told the station, estimating there was 20 tons of trash in the entire trailer.
The ring was found partially covered in red paint and on the floor after it fell out of its trash bag, WMUR reported.
“I grabbed the ring, brought it up, cleaned it up for her, called her up,” Senibaldi told the station. “She was heartbroken on Wednesday and more than ecstatic on Friday.”
It’s the third time in two years a wedding ring was lost in the trash before Senibaldi and his crew dug it up with the last time happening almost exactly a year ago.
He described looking for the ring similar to looking for one specific leaf in a pile of leaves “because everything looks the same.”
And while hard work and an eagle eye helped this time around, timing also played a role.
“It was the last trailer that went out. So, they missed it by 15 minutes or so,” Senibaldi told WMUR.
“If it was 15 minutes earlier, it would’ve already gone in the incinerator.”