A loyal husband sifted through 20 tons of rubbish after accidentally binning his wife's diamonds rings.
Cindy Butler had taken her engagement ring and wedding band off to clean them and left them in a paper napkin to dry on the kitchen counter.
Husband Kevin Butler was tidying the kitchen and - not knowing they were wrapped inside - threw them into the bin.
He then took the bins to the local rubbish collection point, where residential and commercial rubbish is and sorted, reports the Washington Post.
By then, Cindy had started getting worried. She was searching everywhere, but Kevin had an idea. He told her: “I’ve got a feeling they’re in the trash."
Kevin, who has been married for 32 years, rushed over to the collection point about three hours after he had dropped the bin bag off.
According to Dennis Senibaldi, who oversees the waste management station in Windham, New Hampshire, Kevin was "a little frantic" when he arrived.
Senibaldi suggested looking through the CCTV to pinpoint where the binbag had ended up. Thankfully they managed to track it down.
Kevin said: “That in itself was amazing. If we didn’t have that surveillance camera, there’s no way we would have found it. There was so much trash.”
The bag Kevin needed was just about to go into the incinerator, so he was lucky to get it back. He identified his bag down to some celery stalks poking out.
By now, there was an entire team searching for the rings, as Senibaldi's colleagues mucked in. They got down to search through the bag.
After moving some sweet potato peel, Senibaldi saw the two rings sitting at the bottom of the bag.
Kevin was ecstatic and gave the bin man a big hug.
He tried to pay the team, but they refused. So instead, Kevin sent over some pizzas to say thanks.
For Senibaldi, this kind of thing is fairly common. He said that another set of rings was thrown out about a year ago but also thankfully recovered.
Someone also managed to throw out $4,000 worth of suits, while another person accidentally tossed $10,000 cash into the bin.
All of it was found.
Cindy was obviously ecstatic, and has the rings back on her hand.
Butler said: "I had a great story to tell the family when we were all together for Thanksgiving.
“It was truly something to be thankful for.”
