A woman found 12 pearls in her oyster dinner.
Keely Hill discovered the gems in the meals she was eating at a restaurant in New Orleans, Superior Seafood.
The nursery teacher slurped back the oyster while tucking into her dinner and realised she had crunched one of the pearls in her teeth but fortunately did not swallow the rest.
Keely told Nola.com: “I bit (the oyster) in half and felt them on my tongue”
“I definitely ate one, I crushed it in my teeth.”
Jordan Gallet of Superior Seafood where the pearls were discovered said: “The most I ever got was nine. I counted them myself. I was shocked.”
He opens around 2,500 oysters daily but on average finds one or two pearls a week.
Keely grew up in Kansas City and had no interest in oysters after moving to New Orleans.
But her move 12 years ago has seen a change in her palate.
She had previously been enjoying oysters at another restaurant, Basin Seafood, on the day she made the find but did not think she would find enough to make her own jewellery.
The seafood lover now wants to create a ring to hold the dozen jewels in tribute to her late aunt Cathy who was important to her.
Keely said they were as near mother-and-daughter in terms of closeness and she recalls encouraging words used by her aunt.
The rustic unfinished pearls all vary in size and are not thought to be of any great value.
But she says her aunt used to tell her: “The world is your oyster,” when trying, they are priceless.
The Mirror told in March last year how a penniless woman's life may be turned around after she found an orange Melo pearl in her meal which would be worth tens of thousands of pounds.
Kodchakorn Tantiwiwatkul had bought sea snails for 70 baht (£1.65) from a local market for dinner in Satun, Thailand, when she made the shocking discovery.
And in 2008, a Lebanese restaurant owner and his wife opened an oyster containing 26 pearls which was an unofficial record of such finds.
