Wedding ring found in garbage truck in California

MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. (NBC, KYMA) - One man's treasure accidentally ended up in the trash.

Paul Cass of Manhattan Beach, California lost his antique wedding ring as it was hauled off in a garbage truck.

But as luck would have it, a team of sanitation workers jumped into action to help put the ring back on his finger.

A chain of events set off by the most mundane moment: the Tuesday morning trash pickup.

"And I realized, 'Oh my gosh, I just threw it out,'" Cass recalled.

The "it" was his antique wedding ring.

"It's a platinum Tiffany ring. It's absolutely beautiful," Cass shared.

Cass says he'd taken it off because his hands were a little swollen.

"So I said, 'I'm going to get my hands a little rest and just put it in the box and be ready,'" Cass explained.

While packing for a trip, he put the box his 35-year-old Samsonite suitcase.

"So Tuesday morning, my wife says to me, 'Hey, let's use a different carry-on. This one's too old,'" he further recalled.

With that, the Samonsite was history.

"So I emptied it out and I threw it in the trash, garbage day," Cass spoke.

At 8:30 a.m. Pacific, it was business as usual for Waste Management (WM) sanitation driver Santo Gonzalez. Then at around 2:00 p.m., Cass realized what he'd done and put in a call to WM.

"That's when I decide to get in my car and I'm driving. I'm looking for a garbage truck," Cass said.

"It was all hands-on deck. We notified all the teams involved, the driving unit, the facilities, that there is a high-valuable item missing in a piece of luggage," said Vanessa Caustrita with WM PR Communications.

Cass drove to the sorting station in Carson, praying he could catch the truck before it headed to a landfill in Palmdale.

"Supervisors at the facility were on their walkies kind of calling everybody," Caustrita shared.

Right away, Gonzalez and his colleagues pinpointed the truck, and Cass watched as the workers started sifting through the truck.

"And I said, 'There it is, stop.' And they climb through there. And they brought the bag to me, and I dug through it, and there it was," Cass remembered.

Safe and sound, the symbol of his 10-year marriage to Qing Kong.

Mayor Pro-Tem Joe Franklin was delighted over the pride these local sanitation drivers take in their jobs.

"For them to go the extra yard here to help one of our residents didn't surprise me. And I'm just so grateful for the positive outcome," Franklin expressed.