Paula Stanton had pretty much given up hope of ever seeing her anniversary ring again.
Nearly 10 years ago, she accidentally flushed it down the toilet while cleaning the bathroom.
"After I was finished, I looked at my hand and the ring was gone and the toilet had already been flushed," she said. "I stuck my hand in and felt around and it was gone."
Heartbroken, she reached out to her local public works department two years ago to see if, by some chance, someone had found the ring in the sewer system.
"There was no chance of getting that back, no chance. Especially after all that time," said crew chief Ted Gogol.
Fast-forward to November, when Gogol was conducting a routine inspection underneath a manhole cover about 300 feet from Stanton's New Jersey home.
Something glittering caught his eye.
"I could only see a speck of it, but I was pretty convinced it wasn't something that's typically in there," he said. "Then I kind of realized where I was. I'm like, 'Wait a minute. I bet that's Stanton's ring.'''
And it was.
It now is back on Stanton's finger, where she keeps a vigilant eye on it.
"I'm always afraid I'm going to lose it, so I'm constantly looking at my hand to make sure the ring is still there," she said.
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