Ring found in sewer 14 months after being flushed by owner's son

May 23 (UPI) -- A public works crew doing sewer maintenance in Southern California found an engagement ring that had been flushed down the toilet by its owner's 5-year-old son a little over a year earlier.

John and Yana Glass said they were in bed in March 2022 when they heard the toilet flush at their Chino Hills home.

John Glass said it was unusual for his now-stepson to flush the toilet.

"I heard him flush the toilet and I turned to her and said, 'Well, that's odd. He never flushes the toilet, you know, he's 5 years old," Glass told KABC-TV. "I thought that was so weird."

The couple discovered later in the day that the boy had flushed Yana's engagement ring down the commode.

"It was in the bathroom, it was shiny, he wanted to look at it, dropped it and didn't want to tell us and thought the best thing to deal with this was flush it down and hide the crime," Yana Glass recalled.

The couple removed the toilet, but were unable to find the ring. Plumbers were summoned to the home and were able to locate the ring in a pipe, but said they would not be able to retrieve it without causing damage to the home.

The Chino Hills Public Works Department flushed the home's sewer lines, but was not able to dislodge the ring.

The couple ended up buying a new ring and were married two months later.

Chino Hills Public Works employees said they were conducting sewer maintenance in the neighborhood 14 months later when the ring turned up more than 400 feet from the Glass family's home.

"He's hydro-jetting and I am with a screen looking at the debris coming and told him, 'Chris! Chris! Stop! Stop the water because I think the ring is there," Chino Hills Public Works employee Tony Ochoa said.

Ochoa recalled the saga of the flushed ring from the previous year.

The public works employees thoroughly cleaned the ring before returning it to the grateful family.

"I am so, so grateful to the guys for remembering about us for their dedication and hard work and kindness because if it wasn't for them, we would not have it," Yana Glass said.

The couple said their now-6-year-old son is relieved the saga of his flushing misdeed is over, but they don't plan to let him forget about it.

"I plan to tell this story at his wedding someday," John Glass said.

An Alberta, Canada, family had a similar reunion in 2021 with a ring that had been lost for an even longer period of time -- 25 years.

Rob and Shannon Pape said they discovered a leaky pipe at their Medicine Hat home about a year after moving in, and they discovered a 10-carat gold peridot ring when they removed a section of the pipe.

The couple contacted the family who previously occupied the home and discovered a family member had lost the ring down a drain about 25 years earlier.