It was supposed to be the ultimate adventure in romance ... James Umm was taking his girlfriend for a picturesque balloon ride. What Sonya Bostic didn't realize was that James was planning a midair marriage proposal. He'd stashed the engagement ring in his camera bag.

"I thought I was being so slick so it never even crossed my mind that something bad could happen," he tells INSIDE EDITION.

Halfway through the one-hour flight, Umm decided the moment was right. But as he opened his bag to take out the engagement ring..."It went over the side, it went in slow motion, I just wasn't fast enough to grab it," Umm says. He watched in horror as the bag with the ring in it tumbled into the woods.

"He instantly turned white, you could almost see him catch his breath and his heart stopped," Bostic remembers.

As soon as they landed, Umm got to work. He checked their flight path with the balloon company, Heaven Bound Ascensions. He used Google Earth to estimate the spot where his camera bag had fallen. Then he headed into the forest near Akron, Ohio, and started looking for the needle in the haystack.

I went to be encouraging to him, but in the back of my mind I'm thinking, 'There's no way,' " says Bostic.

Day after day he searched. Incredibly, a week into his search, he hit the jackpot!

"I saw it off in the distance, when I bent down and finally pulled it out, there it was. I couldn’t even believe it, it was still in the bag," says Umm.

Now Bostic proudly shows off the diamond ring that she almost never got to see.

"It was perfect and beautiful, and I couldn't have asked for anything better," she says.

The story has an even happier ending. When the jeweler who made the engagement ring heard the story, he made the couple's matching wedding bands for free!

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