Platinum wedding band found in Denver, CO parking lot

Sunday night December 4, I am sitting in my bed reading my favorite metal detecting magazine when I hear our phone ring at 10:30 pm. My wife’s mother was expected to call that evening so I assumed that that was who was calling. Within a few seconds I hear my wife walking up the stair talking on the phone. Diane hands me the phone and says it is somebody who has lost a ring. I answer the phone and Chris Tatum is on the other end, he is in the parking lot of a pizzeria where he has just lost his ring. He tells me that he has searched the area around his car but cannot find his ring and was wondering if I could come out that night and look for the ring. There are a couple inches of freshly fallen snow covering the parking lot and the temperature is 11 degrees. I realize that timing is critical because this parking lot will more than likely be plowed first thing in the morning. I let Chris know that I will be at his location in about a half an hour.

I get dressed, start getting my equipment together and then I have to explain to my wife why I am heading out of the house at 10:45 with my metal detectors while snow falling in bitterly cold temperatures. But we both agree that this search has to occur now so out the door I go.

I arrived at the pizzeria and introduce myself and Chris explains how he was wiping snow off his driver’s seat when he heard his platinum wedding band hit the asphalt parking lot. It was quite obvious where he and his wife had searched for the ring without any luck. I prepped my Whites XLT with Bigfoot coil and began my search. I began my search over the areas that they had searched by eyeballing the site. Soon I expanded my search beyond our original search area, still no luck. By this time my hands are numb and I need to get my gloves out. I continue my search beside a concrete wall that is loaded with steel reinforcing where I heard the definite sound of a ring come from my XLT. I carefully dug through the snow and got my hands on Chris’ ring. The ring laying under 3 inches of snow 20 feet away from where I had expected it to be. This search took only 20 minutes but it was a pretty intense 20 minutes due to conditions.

Ring recovered December 4, 2011.