Deb Kirby of Attleboro temporarily lost five rings, including her diamond engagement ring and wedding ring, when they were accidentally tossed into the trash. They were found by a crew from Waste Management before the truck brought the household waste to an incinerator. (Staff photo by Mark Stockwell)
Have you ever lost your engagement ring or wedding ring? It happens all the time, and usually the story doesn’t end well, except when it does! This has got to be one of the most amazing stories of lost rings being found!
Return of the Rings
BY GEORGE W. RHODES SUN CHRONICLE STAFF
Trash company saves the day for city womanATTLEBORO – The city’s trash company turned into real treasure for one city resident last week.
Waste Management helped Deb Kirby of Holcott Street pull five prized rings out of a mountain of trash that was minutes away from being incinerated May 8.
Here’s the story.
Kirby never leaves home without five rings on her fingers: her wedding ring, engagement ring, a ring her dad gave her and two costume jewelry favorites.
They’re all dear to her, and three have significant monetary value.
But last week, they were gone when she got up, and so she hurried off to work at Bristol County Savings Bank worried and without them.
It was unusual. Kirby always knows where the rings are and they were usually on her fingers.
“I was frantic,” she said. “I couldn’t imagine where they were.”
She went home for lunch and looked for them again and again couldn’t find them.
But on the way back to the bank, a cold chill came over her as she retraced the events of the day before and realized with horror that she had thrown her treasured jewelry out with some dirty paper towels sitting on her kitchen counter as she cleaned up at the end of a busy day.
“It just came to me like a wave,” she said. “It shocked me to the core and I knew I must have thrown them away.”
Kirby said she was drying her rings with paper towels after washing her hands on Monday evening, but somehow was distracted and put them down. After eating dinner and watching TV she forgot they were in the towels and tossed them while cleaning up.
If Tuesday morning wasn’t trash collection day, it would have been no problem. But it was trash day, and it was a big problem.
Waste Management picks up Holcott Street early and the rings were likely gone before she got to work.
The sudden realization sent her into a panic. Her husband Brad said she should call the trash company – it was her only hope, and slim one at that, she thought.
But that’s where trash turned into treasure.
Officials at Waste Management, including Aaron Smith and Walter Taylor, who were able to determine what truck had picked up Holcott Street and turn it around before it dumped its load at an incineration plant.
But that was only the beginning.
They had the truck go to the Raynham Transfer Station, where it dumped its tons of stinking rubbish which had to be searched.
Kirby and a crew of Waste Management workers began the effort at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday morning.
Smith and Taylor knew the rings had to be in trash at the front of the truck and Kirby said they were in a black trash bag with a blue draw string, and that’s where they looked.
It didn’t take long. The rings were found in about 30 minutes.
Less than 24 hours after she lost the most prized possessions of her life, they were restored.
Despair turned to joy.
“When I put those rings on, my hands were shaking because I was so happy,” Kirby said.
Smith, Taylor and their crew are real heroes to Kirby.
“They could have said, ‘Lady, those rings are gone, there’s no chance.’ But they didn’t,” she said.
“I’m so extremely grateful and so very impressed,” Kirby said. “One of my worst days became one of the best.”
