Diamond ring flushed down toilet recovered from sewer 9 years later

SOMERS POINT, N.J. (WPVI) -- A New Jersey woman was cleaning her bathroom nine years ago when her 20th-anniversary diamond ring fell into the toilet and down the drain. She thought it was gone forever.

"It was heartbreaking," said Paula Stanton. "I was embarrassed to tell my husband because it was meaningful."

Her husband sprang for a duplicate, but Stanton longed for the original.

Two years ago she even inquired with Crew Chief Ted Gogol of the local public works department to see if maybe he'd seen it in the course of his work. He told her no.

Then suddenly, when the couple returned from a Thanksgiving trip, there was a note at her door to call the public works department.

"I was thrilled. Stunned. I could not believe it," said Stanton.

There are some 1,100 manholes in Somers Point, but Gogol saw a small, shiny something on the shoulder of a pipe leading from Stanton's house.

He plucked from the sand and muck, cleaned it off, and there it was: Paula Stanton's long lost ring.

"That ring didn't want to leave her family," said Gogol. "There are so many things that could have happened. It could have been washed away, it could have been crushed, but it was just meant to be."

Stanton considers this a miracle, a wonderful Christmas 2018 present.

She vows she will never let that ring out of her sight again.

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