Julie Angelicola thought she’d lost her wedding ring forever when she flushed it down the toilet on the NJ Transit

NEED TO KNOW

• Julie Angelicola accidentally flushed her wedding ring down the toilet while riding a New Jersey Transit train

• NJ Transit employees acted quickly, removing the train car’s toilet tank to locate and recover the ring
• Angelicola reunited with her heirloom after NJ Transit staff disinfected it and coordinated its return before her vacation

Julie Angelicola never thought she’d see her wedding ring again after she accidentally flushed it down the toilet on NJ Transit.

Angelicola was riding the North Jersey Coast Line train to work on Tuesday, July 7 when she went to the bathroom. As she was washing her hands, Angelicola realized that the sink was out of water, so she had to use tissues to wipe the soap off.

“I have a long ride ahead of me, and I just did not realize that I took off my wedding band in the midst of that, threw everything in the toilet, flushed the toilet,” Angelicola told NJ.com. “I went back to my seat and pretty quickly realized I did not have my wedding band on, which I wear every day.”

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Worried, Angelicola called her husband to look for the ring in their house. Since she usually takes off her wedding band to sleep, Angelicola assumed it was still by their bed. But he told her that the ring wasn’t there. That’s when she realized what had happened.

Angelicola told two of the conductors on her train, who wrote down all the train car information for her and called Long Branch Station to let them know the situation. The conductors also told her to locate customer service in Penn Station in New York City to file a lost and found report.

“Everyone just felt so terrible for me and wanted to help, but they also were like, this is a really long shot,” said Angelicola.

After learning what had happened, NJ Transit employees realized they had to act fast in order to find the ring.

“We knew that the only way to get this ring out of there was to get it over to the shop,” said David DeGennaro, general superintendent of equipment at NJ Transit’s Meadowlands Maintenance Complex.

“And the quicker we do this, the better,” he continued. “Because you’re talking about a toilet tank, the longer the bathroom gets used, the worse it’s gonna get.”

The train car was taken into the shop, where the toilet tank was removed and taken into a treatment area. Pipe fitter Sharohn Dixon opened the tank and found Angelicola’s ring.

“It was sitting there on top, just staring at you,” said Eric Sanders, MMC service and inspection manager. “We knew that we had to get that train right away in order to get the ring.”

DeGennaro adds, “Once we found out about the ring, and we knew how important the ring is to Julie, everybody pitched in, from car inspectors to pipe fitters to management staff. Everybody wanted her to get that ring back.”

The day before she and her husband were set to leave on vacation to remote Maine, Angelicola got a call from NJ Transit customer service. They’d found the ring — but Angelicola almost didn’t believe it.

“I said something to the effect of, ‘I appreciate the courtesy call, thanks for following up,’” remembered Angelicola. “And he’s like, ‘Oh no, I’m calling because we found it.’ And I could not believe that.”

Angelicola traveled to Penn Station to claim the ring — which had been disinfected — and meet some of the people who’d helped her reunite with the heirloom.

“I didn’t know how they did it until I met them,” explained Angelicola, who added that she’d initially asked if they’d used a metal detector. “I was floored they did all that. I appreciate it so much.”

As she went into the city to collect her ring, Angelicola ran into one of the two conductors who’d initially helped her. They immediately asked about her ring.

“I told him, ‘Believe it or not, I’m going to pick it up!’ He called to his coworkers, they were so excited,” said Angelicola. “He said people on the train had been asking, ‘Did she ever find her ring?’”

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