Wedding Ring Recovered in Chapel Hill

I received a call from a PhD student in Chapel Hill (ironically, a student at Duke, not UNC). He had been playing basketball on an outdoor court and when he made a pass to another player, he flung his rings (plural) off his finger. While the player did catch the ball, the rings disappeared. It was late in the day and he was unable to find them before it got dark, which is when he contacted me. We agreed to meet first thing in the morning because it was a public court – I didn’t want anyone finding it before we had a chance to recover it for him. We met at the court and that’s when he explained the full story. The rings had come off, passed through a chain link fence, and were lost in the brush and briers beyond the fence. He was able to find the first ring on his own, probably 10-12 feet beyond the fence. In searching for the second ring, it became clear that the amount of trash and brush was making the recovery more difficult than it needed to be, so I started to work on cutting out the briers and vines so we could actually see the ground. After probably 30 minutes of “trimming”, I had exposed enough of the ground that we were able to see the ring and grab it. Another happy ending!