Ring found after fall from hot air balloon

BURTON, Ohio, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- An Ohio man says it took seven days of searching a forest to find the 1-carat diamond engagement ring he dropped from a hot air balloon just before proposing.

James Ng, 26, a pastor at New Mercies Community Church in Burton, said he was planning to pop the question to his girlfriend, Sonya Bostic, 27, during the Oct. 29 hot air balloon ride but his heart sank when his camera case, which contained the ring and its box, slipped from his hands about 500 feet above the ground and plummeted into the woods, USA Today reported Thursday.

Ng said he went ahead with the proposal anyway and Bostic said yes. Ng and a friend used Google Maps to recreate the path of the balloon and searched the area in grids for a week until he found the camera bag, which had lost all of its contents except for the ring and its box.

"We ran up to it ... and we're like, 'Yes!'" Ng said.

The couple described finding the ring as a miracle.

"I just kept looking at it," Bostic said. "It was so beautiful. It was perfect. It was everything that I wanted. And that we found it, and I never thought in a million years we'd find it, that was truly God. It really was."