I got a call from Rocky needing help finding his Palladium wedding ring. He was in shoulder deep water in Lake Michigan and felt his ring slip off his finger. We agreed to meet Friday morning at 9:00am.
I asked the normal questions when we first met. We marked off an area 50 feet wide by 70 feet long in the water. Rocky is 6 foot 5 I’m 5 foot 8. I searched out as deep as I could go then handed Rocky my Excalibur II. Rocky searched the deeper area I could not reach. We had no luck in finding the ring, so I started searching shallower all the way to the shoreline. I could tell Rocky was getting discouraged so I had him go search the condo to keep his mind busy. Ended up grid searching the 50 by 70 foot area twice from two different directions and did not find the ring. This took 5 1/2 hours to grid search the area twice.
After the 5 1/2 hours in the water I was whooped and ready to call it a day. Rocky just happened to walk back down to the beach. I had already had a couple conversations with him about what had happened. He stated his ring has never fallen off before and was not loose. I told him again something physical happened to cause the ring to slip off. He was still sticking to the story of having the feeling of his ring coming off his finger. I told him if he wanted his ring back he needed to trust me 100 percent. I told him that people are stressed when they find out there ring is gone and that moment is burned into there brain that is where the ring is at. I told him your mind plays games with you and we need to turn this into process of elimination. That something physical happened to cause the ring to come off. He thought about it for a couple minutes then said I trust you. Then I asked him what else has happened the last couple days.
He said well, I fell out of a Kayak a couple day ago up the river. He said he did not tell me about it because there is no way he went 1 1/2 days without his ring and not notice it missing. I told him we need to go to the spot he fell in asap. We paddled up to the spot then I fell out of the kayak in the same spot. When I stood up I saw a shinny round looking object on the bottom. I turned on the Excalibur II to make sure it was metal. I got a really loud nice signal. Bent down picked it up and handed him his ring. His reaction was about 8 NOWAY!’s On the paddle back down river I heard him ask himself how he went 1 1/2 days without noticing his ring missing.