July 19th, 2009 by Brad Lovell

I have not had much luck with my last couple of recovery attempts, which is not a great thing for my confidence. I am stubborn, and really hate to give up hope on a search…I know I shouldn’t take it personally, but it does make me feel defeated. But unfortunately, failure is often the nature of the service I provide. A couple of weeks ago a gentleman by the name of Damian lost his wedding ring in the Nepean River, near Penrith west of Sydney. This was the first time Damian’s wedding ring had ever slipped off his finger, and in this particular instance he happened to be standing on a jetty with the Nepean River below. Damian watched as his wedding ring dropped in the water, and his brother-in-law jumped straight in and began searching for the ring. After a quick phone call to his Wife, Damian had his wetsuit and joined in on the search. There we’re two major problems Damian and his brother-in-law encountered. One, the water was freezing cold. In fact we measured the water temperature at 12.5 degrees. The other problem was the bottom of the river was full of weeds. So visibility was virtually zero. After removing some weeds and searching, Damian and his brother-in-law gave up. Damian found my services on the Internet and decided to give me a call. The following Saturday myself and diving friend Matt headed west to the Nepean River. Matt geared up, and began searching the bottom of the Nepean for Damian’s Ring. After a bone chilling hour plus search, Matt was cold and exhausted. He found many items below, but unfortunately no gold/diamond wedding ring. I could tell Damian was disappointed, yet appreciative of Matt’s efforts at the same time. We we’re not about to give up on Damian yet. I really wanted to join in the underwater search myself…and after a call to Matt’s diving partner Alan, I had the thumbs up to borrow his diving equipment. On Sunday we we’re back at the Nepean river..this time both geared up ready to search. Damian had also meshed up some baskets so we could pull out the weeds to make our search easier. After clearing some weeds, Matt and I we’re both underwater, hunting for Damian’s elusive wedding ring. Visibility was horrible, to the point I could not see my hand infront of me. We we’re basically working blind, operating purely on sound from the under water metal detector..and the vibrations of our pinpointers. After about an hour plus of searching and removing copious amounts of rubbish, I finally had Damian’s large gold wedding ring in my hand. The search was finally over, and Damian was a VERY happy man. I want to thank Damian for being patient with the search process, and helping out where ever he could. And of course, thank you kindly for a generous reward. I also want to thank Matt, without your help I would never have been able recovered the ring. And also a special thank you to Alan for lending me your diving equipment. It is very much appreciated!