Metal detectorist to the rescue when beach proposal goes awry

March 28 (UPI) -- A stranger with a metal detector came to the rescue of a British couple who lost their ring just moments after becoming engaged on a beach.

Joe McGrath, 26, proposed to his girlfriend, Becky, 28, on a beach near where she grew up in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, England, but when they were preparing to leave the beach a short time later they discovered the ring had fallen into the sand.

"At first I thought it was going to be one of those things that we will laugh about and we will find it straight away but, five minutes in, I started to think 'crikey this is scary now,'" McGrath told the BBC.

McGrath said he found a metal detector for sale nearby on Facebook Marketplace, but the $26 purchase turned out not to be of much help.

"It just didn't work at all. I don't know what it was finding but it certainly wasn't finding metal," he said.

McGrath turned to a local metal detecting group on Facebook for help, and his plea was answered by Marc Robinson.

Robinson, using his functioning metal detector, was able to find the ring in a matter of minutes.

McGrath said Robinson saved the day.

"I've been planning this for ages and I'd thought about everything. Well, everything apart from the fact that the ring could go missing," he said. "I just want to say that Marc is a legend and was our guardian angel that day. We will never forget him."