A diamond in the rough: South Carolina Public Works employee helps woman recover lost wedding ring.
Greenville, South Carolina resident Melanie Harper was dropping off her recyclables at the North Greenville Recycling Center on Sunday, Jan. 28 when she realized something was off.
Her wedding ring was missing from her finger.
Harper had some papers that she was trying to shove into the recycling bin, she said in a video shared on the City of Greenville's Instagram page. "It was full. My hand was in between some papers and I felt it slip," she said on the video.
In her head, she imagined the Price Is Right game Plinko and the ring just "plinking down to the bottom."
She began to panic, searching for the ring in the recycling bin before counting it as a loss.
The diamond wedding band had been a gift from her husband for their 25th wedding anniversary. Heartbroken, Harper returned home empty-handed, emailing Greenville's Public Works Department stating, "I know the likelihood of finding this is slim to none. But, if the ring is found during the course of recycling, I would be most appreciative if someone could contact me."
Public Works supervisor Jeffrey Hammond called Harper the following day and agreed to search for the ring.
"What can we do to get this ring?," Hammond said in the video posted on social media. "I know if it was my wife, I'd have to get it."
He talked to his crew when he got in the next morning and said "Let's dump it on the ground and search and see if we can find it."
The treasure hunt was on through piles of recycling.
To Harper's luck, hours later, Travis Golden from the litter crew recovered the ring.
"I was just pushing stuff out of the way and I just found it," Golden said in the social media video. "It was one of those moments, you think you are not going to find it and you find it."
Solid Waste Supervisor Frank Daigneault said in the video that this was not normal. "People have lost rings and other jewelry. Usually, it's not found," he said on the video. "So this was a special moment that it was actually found. We're all married. We all have families. We would hope someone would do it for our family."
Hammond called Harper in, who traveled to Public Works to retrieve it and thank the crew.
Harper couldn't be happier and is grateful to Hammond, Golden and crew members James Burnside, Frank Daigneault and Manny Cruz for having the heart to search for the diamond in the rough.
Nina Tran covers trending topics. Reach her via email at ntran@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: After losing wedding ring, South Carolina woman gets surprise
