The owner of an antique wedding ring which fell in the River Great Ouse on Saturday (7 May) has described the moment it was found by a local scuba diving team as ‘a total miracle.’
Emma Lyon was with family and friends on the riverbank during Saturday’s regatta as they cheered on the crews taking part.
As usual, she was wearing her grandmother’s wedding ring; a gold band that is nearly 100 years old.
“We’d just spotted a local crew and I was cheering and clapping vigorously when all of a sudden, the ring flew off my finger and arced into the river,” Emma told the Bedford Independent.
“It all seemed to happen in slow motion and although the boys won their race, the ring was lost.”
A friend of Emma’s suggested that she should contact the local diving club for help, so on Sunday evening she emailed Bedford Scuba Divers and waited to for a response.
“I got an email straight back the next morning, saying that they’d be happy to help and could get a team together that evening,” said Emma.
Unbeknownst to Emma, on receiving her email, events at the scuba diving club snowballed.
Mags Martin, assistant training officer at Bedford Scuba Divers, immediately put a request out on the club’s Whatsapp group asking for help.
“Within 20 minutes, Matt Peters – who would later become the hero of the day – said yes, followed by Tony Pugh and Arvydas “Arvis” Čestauskaitė who were all happy to enter the water,” said Mags.
“We had to inform all the relevant authorities before we could get in the river, so were quickly in contact with the Environment Agency, police and fire teams as well as Bedford Borough Council.
“By 2pm a plan had come together and we arranged to meet Emma at the spot the ring was lost at 5.30pm yesterday (Monday).”
After a false start, searching around 150 metres in the wrong direction, Emma’s husband arrived from Great Denham and pointed out the exact location and within minutes Matt ‘lord of the ring’ Peters had miraculously found it with the beam of his torch.
“Ring and finger were reunited and Emma was one happy lady!” said Mags.
“The divers were absolutely amazing,” said Emma, who took the whole crew out for a thank you drink at a local pub afterwards.
“The ring belonged to my grandmother, who died in 2000 aged 100. She worked at a corn merchant on Caldwell Street and would sometimes get up early and take the family’s punt out on the river before work.
“I did think that if we couldn’t find the ring, it had ended up in a fitting resting place.
“I am just so, so grateful to everyone from the scuba club who gave up their evening to help out and cannot believe that Matt was able to find it. It was a total miracle.”
If you’re interested in finding out more about Bedford Scuba Divers, you can visit their website or Facebook group.
