A diamond wedding ring dropped down the drain 9 years ago is recovered

A diamond wedding ring has been recovered nine years after its owner accidentally dropped it down the drain.

New Jersey resident Paula Stanton was cleaning her bathroom when her wedding ring slipped down the drain.

Stanton thought she would never see her ring again.

"It was heartbreaking," Stanton told ABC-owned affiliate WPVI-TV in Philadelphia.

"I was embarrassed to tell my husband because it was meaningful."

Her husband got her a duplicated ring, but Stanton pined for years for the original.

Stanton talked to an official at the local public works department to see if he or his team had ever come across her ring after all these years.

Ted Gogol, the public works department crew chief, told her no.

Then last month, the couple returned home to find a note from the department on her door. It said to call the public works department.

"I was thrilled," Stanton told WPVI. "Stunned. I could not believe it."

Gogol saw a small shiny thing stuck on one of the pipes coming from Stanton’s home when he was working nearby, and retrieved the ring from the muck and sand in a manhole -- one of more than 1,000 manholes beneath Somers Point.

He washed it off and went looking for Stanton.

"That ring didn't want to leave her family," Gogol told WPVI. "There are so many things that could have happened. It could have been washed away, it could have been crushed.

"But it was just meant to be."

Stanton told WPVI that Gogol is her Christmas angel and she would never let her ring out of her sight, ever again.