Woman's Engagement Ring Found in Sewer After Being Flushed Down the Toilet
Carissa Wolter was terrified when her ring fell down the drain.
— -- It's one of our worst fears: flushing something valuable down the toilet. A California bride-to-be experienced this first-hand when she accidentally flushed her engagement ring.
"I started thinking right away that my jewelry was gone for good," the bride, Carissa Wolter of Jurupa Valley, Calif., told ABC News. "My ring is everything to me, how could I even do that? I was so mad at myself and disappointed."
The incident happened last Tuesday night when Wolter put her engagement ring and a pair of diamond earrings in a tissue while she cleaned her makeup brushes. Left with a pile of tissues when she was done, she flushed everything down the toilet. As she walked back to her room, she realized her ring and earrings were in the pile.
"I was in shock and then I started looking everywhere," she said. "I thought my engagement ring was gone. I didn't want another, I wanted that one. My fiance worked really hard to get that to me."
Mortified, Wolter called her fiance of six months, Kevin Winter, who reminded her that the ring was "only a material thing."
The next morning the couple called the Jurupa Community Services District. The were hoping for a miracle.
At first, no one knew what to do. Later, the office sent a team to put a trap in Wolter's sewer. After a few hours, they found the ring in the sewer down the street from Wolter's home.
The community office did not comment on the incident on Wednesday, but earlier in the week a representative told ABC station KABC that Wolter was "fortunate" to be at the end of a low-flow sewer main.
"A ring like that is very important and we're just happy we were able to do the best to successfully recover it," Daniel Cardenas of Jurupa Valley Services said.
Wolter started crying when she got back her ring.
"I was super thankful that they knew what they were doing and ended up finding it," Wolter said. "I wasn't expecting it at all. Without them, I wouldn't have my engagement ring. They changed my life."