Diamond Ring Has 13-Year Journey Back to Its Owner
Mary Strand admits she could always be a little more careful.
“When we were coming here, she was looking for her glasses,” said David, her husband of 46 years.
“In the morning, I say, ‘David,’ and he says, ‘Okay, your keys or your glasses?'” said Mary with a bashful smile.
Wednesday, the Strands showed up at the Rogers Wastewater Treatment Facility to officially thank workers there for finding her diamond ring, which was caught in a screen along with other debris that gets washed along in the flow of treated water.
Mary last saw the ring–a gift from David on their 33rd wedding anniversary–13 years ago.
“I was in our downstairs bathroom, and I was washing my hands, and I reached over and flushed the toilet, and the ring fell in and it was swirling around, and I truly dove for it,” she said.
She called her husband immediately. He just so happens to own a sewer and drain company with his son. So this is sort of what he does for a living.
“We went from where the toilet is, 200 feet out, and didn’t see anything,” said David.
David and Mary Strand speak to reporters about the finding of their ring.
If only they’d gone about 800 feet further downstream to the treatment facility.
“As far as us finding that ring? Virtually impossible,” said John Tierney, mechanical maintenance manager for Metropolitan Council, which owns the facility. “You wouldn’t find it if you were looking for it, it was just by chance that we pulled it up.”
Tierney said had crews not spotted it earlier this year, it likely would have been shoveled up with the rest of the debris and taken to a landfill.
Strand said she’ll have the ring re-set and re-sized, and she plans to wear it again.
“I couldn’t believe it,” she said of being reunited with her ring. “Unbelievable. I could not believe it. It was very exciting.”
Also See: Metropolitan Council to Replace Aging Sewer Line in Brooklyn Park
