Newlywed reunited with father’s ring thanks to underwater metal detectorist

Newlywed reunited with father’s ring thanks to underwater metal detectorist

A newlywed whose wedding ring fell into a lake has been reunited with it, thanks to the help of some underwater metal detectorists.

Steven Elonich, who married in March, lost his ring in Lake Manawa in the US while he was playing with his dog.

He said the loss was particularly “devastating” because it had originally belonged to his father, Steve, who has stage four cancer.

Steven, from Iowa, had married his wife, Alexa, in a double wedding alongside his sister Jordan and brother-in-law Darin just days before the coronavirus pandemic lockdown came into force in his state.

He has now been reunited with the ring, which he said is never going near water again (Steven Elonich)

Mr Elonich told the PA news agency it was a “needle-in-a-haystack situation” when he lost the ring in the lake.

He said: “Me, my sister and my wife were treading water with cups, diving down, scooping up mud off the bottom, and then going through it to try to find the ring.

“The lake is pitch black at the bottom, so we were just blindly scooping. After a few hours, we decided that it just wasn’t going to happen.”

He put out a plea for help on Facebook, and a high school friend shared it with her father, Tony Reese, a member of Ring Finders.

He had been preparing for a job to find a lost Rolex in Nebraska, and alongside diver Matthew Ryle used the dive as a practice run.

Mr Elonich said he was “ecstatic” when the diver emerged from the water 90 minutes later with the ring.

“I was beating myself up for wearing the ring around water in the first place, so it was such a relief to have something like that happen – especially when the previous year had been filled with such gruesome news.

“Dad, along with about everyone else, was pretty dang surprised any of us saw that ring again.

“He is having his good days and his bad days. He’s extraordinarily tough and resilient. I know I couldn’t handle what he’s going through. We were able to celebrate July 4th weekend together and have a good time.”

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