June 27th, 2009 by Brad Lovell

This is not an ordinary story, but then again most recovery jobs I encounter are unique to some extent. I received a phone call from Chen who had lost his wedding ring. With the poor reception of our mobile phones, and me struggling with Chen’s accent…this was a classic case of lost in translation. Anyway, from what I understood from the phone call was that Chen had lost his wedding ring at the fish markets in Pyrmont Sydney. I had heard him mention the word (water and drink) so I figured his ring must have rolled into the harbour. So I arrived at the Sydney Fish Markets and met Chen in my wet suit ready to start searching the harbour for his lost ring. But as it turns out, Chen had led me not towards the harbour, but towards a drain in the car park area. When Chen was exiting his car, he felt his ring slide off his finger, and heard what sounded like a splash. He did not see exactly where the ring dropped, but figured with the splashing sound it fell down the drain. After removing the drain covers, I began searching for Chen’s lost platinum ring. Unfortunately in this situation, my metal detecting equipment was totally useless. The drain was lined with metal, so signals we’re constant. So I began to search for the ring the old fashioned way, with my bare hands. To make things worse, the drain was filled with black sludge which did not smell pleasant. After spending two hours running my fingers through the sludge searching for Chen’s ring I have up hope. I mentioned to Chen the only way to be sure the ring is in the drain is to shovel out all the sludge, then filter the ring out with water (which would be quite a laborious job). Chen had come to terms with ring being lost..but I was not about to give up without a fight. I spoke to my good friend Tony from Metal Detector Services. I told him the situation, and he mentioned he would be happy to join me on the hunt for Chen’s lost platinum ring. We went back to the Fish Markets at around 1am. This was the best time to hunt as during the day the car park is full, and we could not be able to access the drains. Anyway, Tony got to work removing all the drain covers with his tools. Then we began scooping the sludge into buckets. Once the buckets we’re full we walked down to the wharf, and began filtering the buckets with water. It was almost like we we’re panning for gold, but in this case Platinum. Anyway to cut a long story short, the hard work paid off. We found Chen’s Platinum wedding ring which was now a black colour. After washing it off, there was no mistaking this was Chen’s beautiful platinum ring. I called Chen later that morning to explain the great news. I could tell over the phone that Chen was a VERY happy man. In his own mind the ring was gone, and to hear it had been recovered was a great feeling. As a sign of respect, Chen bought me a huge 1 Litre beer at the Lowenbrau the following night. It was a pleasure to meet you Chen! And I want to thank Tony from Metal Detecting Services again. Without his help I would never have found Chen’s Ring. I owe you a beer or 3.