Paula Stanton was cleaning her New Jersey bathroom back in 2009 when she dropped her diamond-encrusted 20th-anniversary ring down the toilet. She was devastated, as she assumed she would never see the ring again.

“I was cleaning and knew I must have flushed it down,” she said. “I felt so bad about it. Sad and embarrassed.”

Somers Point woman loses ring down toilet, but gets early holiday surprise https://t.co/qGkWs6wbKh pic.twitter.com/u5MmHYmIpQ

— Press of AC (@ThePressofAC) December 11, 2018

When she told her husband Michael what had happened, he was not mad at all and bought her a new ring that looked just like the old one. When he purchased the new ring, Michael jokingly told her to “hold onto this one.”

Though she loved her new ring, Paula still wanted to find the original. Two years ago, she called Crew Chief Ted Gogol of the public works department to ask if he had ever come across her ring while working.

“She had this look on her face while she was telling me about it that said, ‘I can’t believe I did this,'” Ted recalled. “I told her really nicely that the chances of us finding it … well, just in passing, we’d keep an eye out for it.”

Fast forward to last month, when Paula and Michael got back home from a vacation to a note from the public works department on the door. The note asked them to call the department immediately because Ted had found something in the mud and debris just 400 feet from their house.

“I realized it was a ring, and I remembered the woman who was looking for a ring,” he said.

As soon as she saw the ring, Paula knew it was hers because of the initials engraved on the inside.

“Everyone was in a state of shock. I was hugging him and crying,” she said. “I was calling my kids and telling people about it. My family had a difficult year, and for this to happen …”

Paula thoroughly cleaned the ring in peroxide and lemon juice, and she now wears it with the replacement ring! The original ring was found just in time for Paula and Michael to celebrate their 38th wedding anniversary on December 27. We’re so glad their story had a happy ending!