"They were missing. I have no recollection of taking them off," the West Babylon resident said. "It was horrible, because I knew that they were irreplaceable."
Her husband, 57-year-old Joe Salzone, awoke after hearing the garbage truck outside and called the local sanitation department.
"I had had a dream when I heard the garbage trucks outside, I had this feeling that I should stop them because something is wrong," he told Newsday. "I called the town and said 'I think my wife's rings are in the garbage.'"
Ed Wiggins, sanitation site crew leader, answered the call and recalled a similar incident in November in which Colleen Dyckman, 48, of North Babylon, found her wedding rings among piles of garbage.
Wiggins was skeptical that the crew would be able to pull off another amazing find, as most items that make their way to the dump remain lost.
"I said, 'You know, what's the odds of us really doing this two times in a row,'" he said.
Wiggins and his team had developed a system for uncovering missing items and after locating the truck dropped small portions of garbage to help Salzone identify which bags were his.
"Within 20 minutes, I found the bag from my house," he said. "I knew the type of garbage bag I used, and they knew where mine would be because of my address."
He called home to report the findings to his wife, who thanked the sanitation workers for turning the ordeal into a lucky day.
"Friday the 13th is my lucky day now," she said.
