Dave Boyer, Author at The Ring Finders | Page 7 of 7

My hunting partner and fellow ringfinder, Gregg Larabel, received a call from Cindy S. saying she lost her ring in her bedroom and they could not find it.  Gregg and I showed up at her house after she got off work and met her husband, Paul, and Liz the family dog, then received the story of the lost ring.  Cindy and Paul were just waking up on Saturday morning and Cindy took off her three rings to apply hand lotion and handed them to Paul to put on his pinky finger for safe keeping.  He laid the rings on the bed for a moment before he decided that wasn’t a good idea, and handed them back to Cindy to put on the night stand.   Cindy took the rings without really looking at them and put them on the night stand.  She realized the wedding band was missing when she went to put them back on.   They searched the bedroom for hours without finding the lost wedding ring, and, deciding it was unlikely the cat ate it, Cindy got on the internet and found TheRingFinders.com.   Gregg and I decided to start the search in the bedroom, and with the help of Paul and Cindy we dismantled the bed and searched everywhere in, around, and under the bed.  No luck.  I then started to look next to the dresser at the foot of the bed and after moving a small pillow on the floor and with the help of a flashlight I saw the glint of the white gold ring hiding in the pile of the carpet.   How the ring got way over to that side of the room is the real mystery but we were all happy to see it back on Cindy’s finger.

Matt and some of his friends were tailgating before the college game and throwing a football around for entertainment.  To keep from losing it while throwing, Matt took his ring off his throwing hand and put it on his other hand for safe-keeping.  About twenty minutes later he noticed the ring was missing.  His buddy, Derek, got on the internet and posted for help in finding Matt’s ring.

So fellow ringfinder Gregg Larabel and I visited the college campus site and got permission from the campus police to hunt for the ring.  But we found the area so littered in metal trash (lots of bottle caps and pull tabs) that it was really time consuming to hunt.  We spent about an hour, but because of other commitments we had to leave before finding the ring.  Three days later I went back to the site and set up a grid of strings across the area and started a thorough search.  A groundskeeper came by and told me that for about ten years people have been parking their cars on the grass and partying before the football games.   Ten years!  Now I understood all the trash.

With the metal detector beeping almost constantly on those bottle caps, I lucked out and spotted the ring lying in the grass.   Nobody had stepped on it and pushed it into the dirt.  I gave Derek a call and texted him pictures of the ring.  He gave me an address to drop the ring off to a friend that lives on campus and said he would send me a picture of Matt with his ring back on his finger.  Congrats to Matt. I hope he is out of the doghouse now!

This time the ring was lost on the beach.  Brittany had taken her ring off, placing it in her beach bag for safe keeping while she played with her kids in the water.   But when she reached home the ring was gone.   She went back the next day to look for it, but had no success.

Metal detecting hunters search that beach daily, so hunting partner Gregg Larabel and I weren’t optimistic about finding the ring when we made the trip to the park three days later.  It was really helpful that Brittany had provided us with pictures from their day at the beach, enabling us to pinpoint the exact spot where she had been sitting.  We started a grid of the area, and after 2 passes I found the ring about 10 feet from the sign post shown in her photo(below).

We gave Brittany a call and since she had just finished work nearby she said she would meet us in the parking lot.  She arrived with her mother and father, and Gregg showed her some of the junk we had found.  Her comment was “It’s ok, thank you for your help in trying to find my ring.”   I then said, “and I also found this” and showed her the ring.  Her face lit up like the sun and she had hugs for both Gregg and me.  Mother and father also got out of the car and joined in the celebration.

 

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Jasmine H. from Okemos, Mi. lost her wedding ring (3 rings soldered together) about a month ago.  Driving down the road, she tossed a cigarette out the car window and the ring went with it.  Since it was at night, she searched the road with a light but came up empty handed.  After over 20 years of marriage she and her husband replaced the ring with a new one, assuming the original was gone forever.  In one last chance she searched Facebook and found the RingFinders site and called Gregg Larabel who is registered for the Lansing area.

Today, Gregg and I met Jasmine at 10:00AM in the area where she lost her ring.  The sides of this rural, two-lane road had been mowed recently which concerned us initially, but it turned out the short grass made hunting for her ring a lot easier.  After about an hour of searching I got the signal of her ring about 5 ft. off the blacktop under some sand and pebbles.  We called Jasmine over and had her check in the sand right at that spot.  She was overcome with emotion when she uncovered her ring.  After a month of being lost and being run over by mowers, the ring had come thru with no damage.  With hugs and high fives it was a sight to be seen.  And you wonder why we love this job!

Got an e-mail from Sean stating he lost his wedding ring three days ago while swimming in waist deep water.  Gregg Larabel and I set out to Holland later that evening when the swimming crowd thins out to search for the ring.

Thanks to Sean’s accurate instructions, it took me only about thirty minutes to find his ring, and while we were looking for it Gregg found a big stainless steel ring -no ID inside the ring.  Sean was not at the beach with us, so today he and I met halfway between our homes to deliver the ring to him.  Sean’s whole family came, his wife and three little boys, and everybody was happy that Dad’s ring was back on his finger.

John called me at around 7:00PM tonight and by 8:15PM his ring was in my scoop.  He was playing with his kids in the water when he felt his ring fly off.  They were right by a buoy, and he was sure the ring had to be within 10ft of that.

After searching the right side of the buoy without luck I moved to the other side, and about 3ft away I got a good hit.  When I told John I had a good signal he came closer and was able to reach in the second scoopful and pull out his prize.  He gave me a big bear hug and almost broke my rib.

Another successful hunt-I really love this job!

 

 

 

Brent, Maria and son Chase were on a short vacation from Indiana with friends.  They took a hike up to the summit of Mt. Baldhead, and afterwards Maria discovered her car keys missing-the only keys they had for their car.  They had been in her backpack at the start of the hike, but going down the other side of the dune she had fallen, and assumed that is where she lost the keys.

The easy part of this hunt was actually finding the keys.  Getting to the spot where Maria fell was another matter entirely!  We climbed the 302 steps to the top of Mt. Baldhead, then hiked down the other side of the dune in soft, loose sand for about 60 yards to get to the spot where she had fallen.  Scanning the area I got a faint signal–and there were her keys.

As you can see, the trail behind Maria is pretty steep and we had to go back up that way and then down the 302 steps back to the cars.  It was a hot and humid day, but Maria still had a smile on her face.

Yesterday, one Ringfinder guy was busy and referred this to Gregg Larabel who was also busy.  That left it up to me.

Picked up my fellow Ringfinder, Chuck Raison, to accompany me on the 3 hour ride up to Thumb Lake.  Katrina was playing in the lake with her two boys when she noticed her engagement ring was missing, but her wedding ring was still on her finger.

She was sure it must be in the water, so that’s where Chuck and I searched first, but without success.  Finally I made two passes over the spot where they had been sitting on the beach itself, and there it was.

Katrina was on vacation in the area and was feeling quite blue about the bad turn her trip had taken, but we brightened up her day.  Her smile tells it all, but our smiles were just as big!

Gregg Larabel, my RingFinder friend, received a call from Jason G saying he lost his wedding band on his way home from work.  He was driving into the lane to his home and threw a candy wrapper out of the truck window; his ring went flying with it.  It was dark, and he really did not have an exact spot where the ring was lost, but he knew it was just before the driveway to his neighbor’s house.  The next morning he did find a candy wrapper next to the lane and he marked this with a stick.  Gregg and I went out there and hunted for about 2 hours in the brush and heavy downfall of leaves with no success for that day.  Jason did say that he was sure the ring was thrown farther east of where he found the candy wrapper and we concentrated that day on that area.

Three days later Gregg and I called in some extra help — Fred Johnson, another Ringfinder, plus Denise M. and Jack B.  After preparing a test ring with a red ribbon on it, we threw it out a vehicle window to see how far it might have gone into the brush.  Then all five of us set out flags and started to grid the area.  After about an hour I found the ring very close to the original spot that Jason had marked for us, five feet or so from the edge of the road in a small clump of brush.  After some high fives we waited for Jason who was on his way home from work. Gregg had called him while he was on the road and told him the good news.

Jason presented us with a generous reward and after splitting that five ways, we all went home with smiles on our faces.  This hobby cannot get any better than this!

 

 

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