Chatham, Ma Hearing Aid Lost in the Sand – Found and Returned
July 3, 2024
Elaine would very seldom wear her hearing aids, especially to the beach. But on the beautiful July day she did. By what ever force happened, it pull the hearing aid off her ear before falling into the sand. Several family members looked for all they were worth with no success.
A search for help ended with the call to my phone. Within the hour I was all set up ready for the search. Yes, July 3rd and a packed beach conjured up a nightmare of how I was going to search the beach. Too my surprise family relative were “holding” the area open with a game of beach paddle pong. The area was all mine.
Well, an hearing aid is about the hardest item to find with a metal detector. Thinking ahead I had a bag to put one of my own hearing aids into so I could “tune” my detector for the best possible search mode for a hearing aid on a sandy beach. Still, with all the very small bits of metal on a public beach it was a challenge. About 15 minutes and at the very end of the “possible” area it was lost in a very faint, repeatable signal. One scoop and there it was, even to my amazement.
The family ensured me it would be returned to Elaine when they left the beach. She called me later on to personally Thank me.
Its a beautiful afternoon in one of New Jerseys finest beach towns, Seaside Park. The oceans were calm, winds light and variable, which made for a perfect day of shell collecting. Dylan and his daughter set out to do just that. Unfortunately all the absolutely beautiful shells they had gathered together, just couldn’t make up for what had just happened. They were down at the very bottom of the tide line, by the drop off, picking up just one last shell, when Dylan decided to rinse off his hands and call it a day. At that very moment he watched his ring slip off his finger, and drop into the sand, just as a wave was rolling in. Even thought the ocean was as calm as we will experience here, Dylan had absolutely no luck over the next two days locating his beautiful wedding ring. When he called me and told me it had already been two days, and that it was just about dead low tide where his ring slipped off, I didn’t have a good feeling about the recovery, at that moment. What he did have in his favor was the fact that it had been dead calm, and was going to continue that way for the next few days. I told Dylan I would be on the beach for the next low tide which was day 3 of his ring being lost on the bottom of the ocean. I was out at 4 AM scouring every inch of the location he had marked with his phone in google maps, with not even one signal. Unfortunately I had prior obligations the next 2 days and would not be able to return until the following morning low tide. It was 5 AM or so, and here I am wondering around in the ocean again, but this time in about thigh deep water my machine sounds off a perfect low tone that you can tell almost in an instant was Dylan’s ring. I missed it in the first scoop, then BINGO !!!! I had his ring after 6 full days in the ocean. Believe me friends, this situation almost never exists in the state of NJ, but luckily for him it did that week. I messaged him asking for a detailed description, because all we had mentioned was white gold in our other conversations. I was pretty positive this was his ring, and the pictures confirmed that. I texted him pics and he was in total shock. We agreed to meet a few hours later for the monumental return.
