Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
EAST HEMPFIELD TOWNSHIP, Penn. — A woman was reunited with her heirloom diamond ring after it was accidentally flushed down a toilet and recovered from the sewer three days later.
Cindy Vriens of Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania, said her daughter was playing with the ring and accidentally flushed it down the toilet at an office on Rohrerstown Road Sept. 5, according to LancasterOnline. The ring featured a 1-carat diamond surrounded by four blue sapphires in the antique setting and had been a wedding gift from Vriens’ grandmother before she died.
“I’m going to say it’s between 75 and 100 years old,” Vriens told LancasterOnline. “The monetary value is meaningless to me. It’s the fact that it came from (my grandma) that makes it so special.”
Vriens decided to call the Lancaster Area Sewer Authority to see if they could recover the ring. Employees said the chances would be slim, but that they would attempt to find the ring. On Sept. 8, a crew went into a manhole located 75 feet away from the building where the ring was flushed and began sifting through the material inside the 8-inch sewer line, LancasterOnline said.
The men checked a trap that prevents sewer gas from seeping back into the nearby buildings and the workers found the ring.
“They asked me to describe my ring and when I did, they said, ‘We found it,’ ” Vriens said. “It was a miracle.”
Click here for the full story.