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Metal detectorist recovers heirloom engagement ring lost in the snow

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Feb. 18 (UPI) -- A Massachusetts woman who lost her engagement ring, an heirloom that has been in her fiance's family for 40 years, got some help searching in the snow from a professional metal detectorist.

Sarah Fitzgerald said she was visiting a friend's house in Agawam to watch the Super Bowl when the diamond ring disappeared into the snow.

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"I had taken the ring off in the car to put some lotion on my hands, and I never put the ring back on," Fitzgerald told Western Mass News.

Fitzgerald and her friends spent about an hour crawling around in the snow searching for the ring, but without success.

"I truly started to feel like I was never going to see that ring again," she said.

Fitzgerald's fiance, Greg Strattner, whose family has owned the ring for more than 40 years, said he made it his mission to get the ring back on her finger.

"She was very distressed, and I was not willing to even put it out into the universe that the ring was gone, so I started looking on Google," Strattner said.

Strattner's searching led him to Keith Wille, a professional metal detectorist and founder of Rediscover Lost, a company specializing in finding historical artifacts and lost items.

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Wille made the hour and one-half trek from his home in Groton, Conn., to help search for the ring. He said the snowfall made the search more difficult.

"I would say it was more stressful because when you add snow to the equation, you know, it's easy to move it. Like, 'Oh, it accidentally got moved in that shovel-full,'" he said.

Wille posted a video to YouTube showing the moment he found the ring and returned it to Fitzgerald.

"We were just so excited and happy, and we said it felt like we got engaged all over again," Fitzgerald said.

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