(For God's Sake) Keep Your Ring On It

BURTON -- James Ng was all set to "pop the question" on a surprise hot air balloon ride with his fiancee, until the symbol of their love fell 500 feet into the woods below.

In the meantime, the engaged couple went to WalMart and bought a nine dollar replacement ring, just something to put on her finger.

"But before we bought the ring at WalMart, I had put a twist tie on Sonya's finger," Ng told WKYC. "I mean, we were engaged."

And then seven days into the search, which covered a number of square miles of woods, brush, and bramble, there was the camera bag. James and a friend helping him search approached with excitement.

"We ran up to it and it was the bag, and we're like yes!" Ng gleefully remembers the moment. "And I took caution tape out of my back pocket and tied it around the tree right next to the bag."

The only item still in the bag was the little box containing the ring. Both James and Bostic say God gave them a miracle.

[http://www.wkyc.com/news/local/news_article.aspx?storyid=125122&catid=3]


New York (CNN) -- A Morris Plains, New Jersey, woman got an early birthday present on Monday when local sanitation workers found her wedding and engagement rings after sifting through 10 tons of garbage.

Bridget Pericolo, who will be 78 in December, told CNN that her husband, Angelo Pericolo, 78, had inadvertently thrown away a cup that she had put her rings in, thinking it was garbage.

"I looked for the cup, it was gone," she said. "I called Angelo and asked him where the cup was, he said, 'Oh my God, I threw it out.'"

About 1 p.m., the drivers, Edgar Lopez and Joseph McGee, as well as Angelo Pericolo, went to work to find the bag with the ring, Brotons and

"We dumped the truck, which had about 10 tons of garbage on it," Brotons told CNN.

Bridget Pericolo was waiting in the car at the transfer station during the search. She said she had almost given up hope after about 45 minutes of waiting.

"I thought maybe he couldn't find it," she said.

But after about 50 minutes, her husband came back -- "I was knee-deep in garbage," she said he told her, bearing the rings that represented their 55 years of marriage.

[http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/11/12/new.jersey.rings.found/]