Engagement Ring Found After Man Sifts Through 9 Tons of Garbage

After accidentally throwing away his wife’s custom designed platinum engagement ring, a Florida man has dug his way out of the dog house— but first he had to go through 9 tons of disgusting garbage.

The Miami Herald reports that Brian and Anna McGuinn have been married for five years and are expecting their first child in a few months. One fateful night at the end of October, he absently tossed his disposable razor into the trash. With it, went his wife’s engagement ring.

He didn’t realize his mistake until the bathroom garbage had already been taken out and carted off to the dump. Rather than kiss it goodbye, he drove to the dump and asked if he could dig around for it. Employees outfitted him with a makeshift hazmat suit including tough leather gloves, coveralls, and a mask, but the smell was still so strong that Brian tossed his cookies all over Winter Park, Florida refuse. Undaunted, he continued looking, finally getting a break when he spotted a familiar piece of garbage on the other side of the pile. It wasn’t immediately visible, so he decided he’d have to dig. And that’s when shit got gross—

With the thick leather gloves he’d been given, McGuinn couldn’t feel anything as delicate as the missing ring. He had only one choice left: take off the glove and plunge his naked hand into the 5-inch pool of black sludge.
“It had been raining profusely, there was like five inches of nastiness,” he said.

McGuinn felt around, thinking he had found a nail. But when he pulled his sludge-covered hand from the pile, McGuinn let out a Tarzan-like yell. He was holding the diamond ring.

Brian took the reclaimed ring to a jewelry store, had them clean it (hopefully, he showered beforehand) and then drove to his wife’s workplace, where he put the ring on her finger.