Photo: Ron Levine / Stone / Getty Images
A 17-year-old girl from Iowa was devastated after she lost a priceless ring while on a school trip in Texas. After performing at Six Flags in San Antonio, Emily Dickerson, and her classmates went to Sparkling City by the Bay to relax and enjoy some time at the beach.
Dickerson decided to go swimming but didn't want to lose her ring, which contained the ashes of her late father, so she took it off and put it in a Subway sandwich box. She also placed three other rings that had sentimental value to her in the box.
Unfortunately, Dickerson forgot to grab her rings, and by the time she realized she left them behind, it was too late.
"The charter bus wasn't able to drive all the way back to Corpus Christi to look through some trash. Those were his ashes. You can't replace those," Dickerson told KHOU.
When she got back to Iowa, Emily's mother called the Corpus Christi Parks and Recreation Department and left a message about the lost rings. When Laura Perez, the parks operation supervisor, heard the voicemail, she knew she had to do something.
Perez was able to locate the four-ton dumpster where trash from the beach was discarded and grabbed a few other employees to search for the rings.
After three hours of digging through the trash in the sweltering heat, they found Dickerson's missing rings.
"It was like finding a needle in a hay sack, I am a true, anyone who believes in a higher power believes that Emily definitely had a guardian angel that day," Emily's mother, Tina Koch, said.