Dan Henderson, Author at The Ring Finders

Lost Ring Found at Owner’s Home

  • from Santa Cruz (California, United States)
Contact:

Two days ago I got a text from Nico requesting some help finding his ring that he lost a couple months ago in front of his house while playing basketball with his son.  I was a bit concerned about the amount of time that had elapsed, but agreed to meet him yesterday at his house to make an attempt.

When I met Nico I found out that he had already searched extensively for his lost ring, even purchasing a metal detector that he and his boy had been using to look for the ring.  The description he gave me of how he lost the ring was very clear: he had lost it while dribbling a basketball and somehow the ring went flying off his hand.  It was dark and he heard the ring bounce once on the cement driveway but then it was gone.  He also described a vehicle being parked partially in the driveway, which would limit the distance that the ring could have travelled in one direction (into the street).  Because he wore his ring on his left hand and he happened to be facing the street, I suspected that the ring might be in his neighbor’s yard that butted up against his driveway on one side.  So I made a plan to first search his neighbor’s yard close to his driveway, and then to search his yard close to his driveway if this didn’t work out.

After confirming we had permission to search his neighbor’s yard and gathering my equipment, I worked the edge of the yard very slowly and within about 2 minutes got a very strong surface signal in his neighbor’s wood chips.  As I bent down to examine it, I saw the glint of metal peeking through.  I reached down excitedly and extracted Nico’s ring from his neighbor’s yard.

Nico, his son, and I spent another 10 minutes helping him learn how to use the metal detector he purchased, and found out that it worked fine on the ring as well.  So he must not have been precisely on the spot that I had focused my search on.  I was happy to make another ring return to it’s owner.

Tags:
Category:

Lost Diamond Ring Found At Apartment Complex

  • from Santa Cruz (California, United States)
Contact:

Yesterday I received a referral from Jes Muse, Ringfinder in San Francisco for a lost ring in Sunnyvale.  Rohit, who had lost the ring the night before, contacted me shortly after looking for some support in finding his fiance’s lost ring at their apartment complex.  He described a small area of grass and landscaped shrubbery where the ring was likely located.

When I arrived today, Rohit explained that they had lost the ring while playing a game right outside their apartment.  He described a situation of the ring being accidentally thrown and then hearing it bounce off of a wall.  However he and his fiance had looked for the ring for hours prior to my arrival.  Given the beautifully manicured lawns and landscaping of the apartments, I knew the ring would be easy to find with a metal detector if it was there, and I started my search right where Rohit said he thought the ring would be.

Sure enough, within about 10 minutes of searching, I detected a surface target right in the perfect “ring” range, and when I bent down to inspect it I saw a hint of gold peeking out from the blades of grass.

Rohit and his fiance were very excited that I found the ring as she has a flight back to her work scheduled this evening.  I’m glad they had the good reasoning to call in a metal detector to assist.

Tags:
Category:

Lost Ring Found at Seacliff State Beach

  • from Santa Cruz (California, United States)
Contact:

Today I got a text from Bo who asked for assistance finding a lost ring.  I called him and learned that his brother Alex had lost his wedding ring while throwing a frisbee at the beach.  He said his brother literally felt it slip off his finger.  They were right at the water line when this happened so I was a bit concerned that the ocean could have carried it further out than where it first landed.  I checked the tides and advised that I would be there in a couple hours during the upcoming slight low.  I’m glad they called as soon as they lost it since it was likely that it could have gotten carried out to sea with another tide cycle.

I met Bo and Alex along with their family at water’s edge and they explained exactly where he threw the frisbee from and the direction that he threw it when his ring slipped off his finger.  I started pursuing a tight overlapping grid in the precise location.  The site was unusually clean for our local beaches.  Within about 10 minutes and on my 4th or 5th pass I found the one and only target of the day – Alex’s ring!

It was great to help this appreciative family out.

Tags:
Category:

Lost Phone Recovery in Santa Cruz

  • from Santa Cruz (California, United States)
Contact:

A couple days ago Allison contacted me asking for assistance finding her daughter Marcy’s phone that Marcy had lost several days earlier in Pogonip park in Santa Cruz.  They were able to track the phone as it was still sending a GPS signal and I have done a lot of metal detecting in this park due to it’s important place in Santa Cruz history.  Marcy had been back to the site twice already looking for her phone thinking that it would be easy to find given the location it was transmitting, but was getting to the point of hopelessness as she felt it had gotten completely obfuscated by the tall dry grass.

I was reasonably confident in my ability to find the lost phone as the GPS signal narrowed it down to an area of about 100′ radius and I was very familiar with the park.  Typically I prefer the person who lost the item to be with me for the search so that she can advise on specific details on where it was lost, but in this case with the GPS signal still transmitting I was happy to make an attempt on my own.  I let them know that I would get started the following day late in the afternoon and that I would stay in touch to communicate details.

Yesterday I hiked into the site and spent some time reorienting myself based on Marcy’s map she sent and my live Google maps with a pin dropped of where the phone’s location was reporting from.  The night before I had made this map in preparation, since I have experienced situations metal detecting where a map or satellite view of an area looks totally different from how the site looks on the ground.  Curiously I had immediately started finding various items by eye right on the surface… a pair of beat up sunglasses, beer cans, bottles.  So it appeared that a lot of human activity had transpired here.  As I started searching with my metal detector I started finding more items, mostly by eye.  I had even found a junk ring and a small silver earring, at which point I stopped and reached out to Marcy’s father (who was still in communication with Marcy by email) to find out if Marcy had also happened to lose a pair of sunglasses and silver earring.  I wanted to find out if I was close to the location of where the phone had been lost, because the search was taking longer than I anticipated and it was definitely not spot on the coordinates that the phone was reporting.

When Marcy’s father responded that she had not lost these items I realized it was time to start expanding the search to the outer limits of the 100′ radius of the phone’s GPS accuracy.  I told Marcy’s father that I would continue until dark.  It seemed I had been finding everything but Marcy’s phone which was being quite elusive.  But I was confident that it was still there.  Sure enough, not long after this and as I was tracing the absolute edge of the GPS estimate, I finally spotted Marcy’s phone peeking through the tall grass!  It had been just sitting there for several days, totally untouched but till transmitting it’s signal.

In this case a slow and meticulous search was as valuable as a metal detector.  The phone was quite visible, but to find it required a lot of patience and estimation of where it could be based on good information.  I contacted the family and shortly after met up with Marcy’s father to return the phone to her.  We were all very happy to have her phone returned back to her and I was glad that I could be of assistance in their search.

Tags:
Category:

Wedding Ring Recovery in a Palo Alto Park

  • from Santa Cruz (California, United States)
Contact:

 

Chris contacted me looking to get the ball rolling with Ring Finders because he had lost his wedding band in a park.  The situation he described is all too common: he had taken his ring off and put it on a carabiner for safe keeping before playing sports.  He remembered putting it on the carabiner along with a water bottle and he remembered having this assembly in tact when he left the field, but when he was back in the car and getting ready to leave he realized his ring was missing.  So Chris reasoned that it was either in the car or on the field, and he decided to make one more search of his car before bringing me in for some assistance after his search proved unsuccessful.  I was pretty confident we would find his ring based on Chris’ prior search and the clarity with which he described what happened.

He and his wife met me at the park this morning and reiterated what he did and the path he took to and from the car.  He also revealed to me that he and some friends had previously searched the area both by eye and with a metal detector.  We agreed to thoroughly search the beginning and end points of his path and to search the path he took if we didn’t find anything at the endpoints.  Our search was starting to get a little longer than expected, to the point where I felt it was a good idea to change to a smaller coil with better target separation and also use slightly different settings on my metal detector that audibly accentuated surface targets.  I was pulling up a fair amount of trash, and at one point even a junk stainless ring!

During my slow grid back to the start point, on the path that Chris took, I hit a very solid signal that was clearly right on the surface.  And sure enough it was sitting right at the base of the grass, just hidden in the green and gold background.  Chris and his wife were in disbelief when I exclaimed, “I got it dude!”, as it seemed their hope was waning due to the prolonged search they had been through.  We were all thrilled that our thorough search proved fruitful in the end.

Tags:
Category:

Ring Recovery Assistance in Santa Cruz County

  • from Santa Cruz (California, United States)
Contact:

A few weeks ago a friend of mine Tom Tanner asked for some assistance in finding a lost ring in Nisene Marks State Park.  I am very familiar with the location as my experience and love for the rugged mountains in this park was one of the reasons I moved to Santa Cruz now ~25 years ago.

We met the couple Maddie and Jace who unfortunately lost their ring and, hiking in two miles, they led us to each of the places they believed they stopped where they could have possibly dropped their ring.  Interestingly, on the way back and feeling somewhat defeated, as we were talking about all the other places it could be, Jace said very convincingly, “I think it’s here in the park.”  So of course we kept searching, going back over some of the places we had already searched.

Amazingly not more than 200 yards from the cars, I heard a bunch of excited shouting ahead of me and Jace turned around as I was searching and yelled, “Tom found it!”.  Sure enough, after a 4 mile adventure, Tom had found Maddie’s beautiful diamond solitaire ring, buried under no more than 1 inch of leaves and redwood duff, right in one of the spots where they thought it might be.

My first assisted ring find was truly a great adventure and even better reunion, and motivated me to join the Ring Finders myself.

Ring Recovered Santa Cruz Nisene Marks Park

Tags:
Category: