Grace Paulnack has been wearing her wedding band without fail for 64 years. She left it on her finger even when she had surgery, but recently a freak accident resulted in the two being separated.
“You know how you try to balance yourself on a dock, well flip!” Grace told WNEP.
“She’s waving her hands around and the ring flings off, the ring that nobody could get off,” her husband, Carl said.
“And my two nieces were like, ‘oh my god Aunt Grace, the ring just fell into the lake.’”
Grace was walking on her dock at Pennsylvania’s Lake Wallenpaupack when the accident happened. She was willing to write off the wedding ring, she even proposed buying a new one.
But her husband didn’t agree. He was determined to find the ring, although it cost him only $10 when he purchased it so many years ago for the first time.
“I thought it was an omen. I thought it was an omen. This is the end of our life. I am not superstitious, but I thought, this is an omen. This is a harboring of things to come. Now she says, don’t worry about it we will get another ring. Nope, I want that ring.”
Carl reached out to a dive team for help. To help in the search and rescue, Carl colored a piece of metal and dropped it in the area he believed Grace dropped her ring.
“It seemed like he was down there for forever. I guess it wasn’t, but still. Then he said ‘is it two rings.’”
To everyone’s surprise Dive Lieutenant Rich Slidgerski was able to discover Grace’s ring – since Grace’s ring was a “nestle of rings” it came apart into different pieces when it fell into the water.
“It was like a miracle for me,” Carl said.
Once Grace’s ring was back in her hands, she could relax.
“They were like eh well, but it was a big deal to me,” he said. “I said Grace if I have to, I’ll build a dam around this place, I’ll pump the water out and find it myself but I am going to get those rings back.”
