Ten Tons of Trash for a Wedding Ring

Nov. 12, 2009 — -- Bridget Pericolo's engagement and wedding rings have served as a symbol of the love she shares with her husband Angelo during 55 years of marriage.

That's why the New Jersey couple got their town's sanitation department involved in a search through tons of trash after Angelo Pericolo accidentally threw out the rings this past Monday.

It took Angelo and three men from Parsippany, N.J.'s sanitation department nearly an hour to sift through 10 tons of trash, but there they were -- his wife's wedding ring and engagement ring.

"It's unreal how we found these rings in a garbage bag. There were 1,000 black garbage bags in the truck," Angelo told ABC News. "I really believe in miracles now."

On Sunday evening, as Bridget Pericolo was watching television, she decided to take off her jewelry and placed her rings in a plastic cup in the couple's living room. When she woke up the next morning, the cup was gone.

She began the search for her rings.

"I called my husband and said, 'What did you do with that cup that was on the table?'" she recalled. "He said, 'Cup? I threw it out.'"

She tried to catch the garbage truck Monday before it pulled away with her rings, but she's 77 and suffered a stroke last year, and couldn't make it to the curb in time.

Later, Angelo came home from work and the couple tracked down their garbage truck on its route. Daunted by the amount of trash the truck had collected, the couple gave up the search.

"My husband said, 'You better forget about it, you're never going to find these rings, you're never going to find them in all that garbage,'" she said.

But the town of Parsippany didn't end the quest to recover the rings. The Parsippany Sanitation Department called Bridget Pericolo after their stop at the truck was unsuccessful.

"I told her to have her husband come down to our facility and we'll spread out the garbage to see if we can find it," sanitation supervisor Michael Brotons said. "By the end of the day, there was, like, 10 tons of garbage in the truck."

Bridget Pericolo: '1,000 Bags in Garbage'

Around 1 p.m. on Monday, the Pericolos arrived at Parsippany's trash processing center on New Road and the search began.

"There were 1,000 bags in garbage," Bridget Pericolo said.

"All we had to go on was that it was a black bag," Brotons said.

Brotons and two of his employees, Edgar Lopez and Joseph McGee, joined Angelo Pericolo in digging through the rubbish.

"Every bag looks the same, so you just start ripping them open," Brotons said.

"It was awful," Angelo Pericolo told ABC News. "I was smelly and in all kinds of stuff -- toys and garbage and cookies. It was horrible."

"We went through it for about an hour and her husband spotted the bag," Brotons said. "He spotted it, we pulled it out, opened it and there was his wife's wedding band and her engagement ring."

"How we found that bag, I really don't know," Angelo Pericolo said. "It's amazing how this occurred."

The Pericolos were overjoyed and thanked Brotons and his crew for their help.

Brotons also was excited.

"Just the expression on the people's face when you give them back something they lost, that's all that matters," he said. "They were happy. They were relieved when they got it back, and that makes you happy, you know?"

Bridget Pericolo credited the find to her Catholic faith.

"I prayed to the blessed mother, and she always answers my prayers," she said.

In September, the Pericolos celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary. Angelo Pericolo's father and Bridget's parents knew each other back in their native Italy. Both families later moved to the United States.

Pen Pals During the Korean War

In 1951, at the age of 19, Angelo Pericolo joined the Marines to fight in the Korean War. His mother Agnes asked Bridget, who'd never met Angelo Pericolo, to send him letters while he was abroad.

"I wrote really uninspiring letters just to do it and get it out of the way," she remembered.

"I was in the Korean War and when I came out I met my wife," he said.

"When he came back he looked like a different person, and he was, really," she said.

"I asked her out and that's how it happened," he added. "We've been married 55 years."

The Pericolos have three adult sons and a 5-year-old granddaughter who Bridget Pericolo calls "the light of my life."