“It just restores your faith in people,” Denise Rivera told CBS

NEED TO KNOW

• A woman’s engagement ring fell into the Hudson River after she adjusted it on her finger
• Denise Rivera panicked until she learned a group of divers from Hudson Valley Commercial Diving School had volunteered to help search
• “It just restores your faith in people,” Rivera told CBS

A bride-to-be has been reunited with her engagement ring after it took a tumble into the Hudson River.

On Tuesday, Aug. 25, Denise Rivera was enjoying dinner at Billy Joe’s Ribworks on the Hudson River in Newburgh, New York. She only meant to adjust the ring after something irritated her hand, she told ABC 7, CBS News and News 12, but in a split second, the ring fell from her finger and into the water.

“It just slipped off,” Rivera told News 12. “It rolled off the table, rolled on the floor and then off the dock and into the water. And my heart dropped.”

Panic immediately set in. Rivera recalled “jumping up” and “screaming,” alarming her sister and her brother-in-law, who were dining with her, per ABC 7 and News 12.

The ring symbolized Rivera’s romance with her fiancé, Alfred Gonzalez. The two went to middle school together in Queens, per News 12, and recently reconnected through a mutual friend earlier this year. Gonzalez popped the question in May.

But in a stroke of luck, a group from Hudson Valley Commercial Diving School was also eating at Billy Joe’s when Rivera lost her ring, per CBS. The divers later reached out to Rivera and offered to help search for her ring, and the next morning, the bride-to-be and the divers returned to the restaurant.

The diving team estimated the Hudson River was roughly 12 to 15 feet deep where the ring was lost. On top of that, the water was extremely cloudy and had next to no visibility, per News 12. Dive instructor and school owner Christian Dougherty told the outlet the divers “do everything by feel down here.”

After hours of sifting through silt, debris and mud from the riverbed, the divers changed tactics and used buckets to refine their search. The first bucket of debris produced no results, but the second held a promising sparkle.

“I couldn’t believe it when he showed me the ring and I immediately put it on. I didn’t care [that] it wasn’t clean. I just put it right back on and it was just a joy that they saw,” Rivera told ABC 7, adding that those who helped locate her ring will receive invitations to her wedding.

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“It just restores your faith in people,” she told CBS. “Actually good people out there. They had no other intention than finding that ring for me, making me happy. Someone they don’t even know, a stranger.”

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