Divers recover lost wedding ring from lake

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – Brian Harvey has recovered a lot of items from the bottom of Kansas lakes but his most recent recovery is both the smallest and most sentimental.

Newton couple Tim and Melissa Livesay called on Harvey’s help after a Saturday afternoon at the new Splash Aqua Park in south Wichita turned stressful. When Melissa was on one of the inflatables, her wedding ring fell off and into the lake.

Harvey and his wife, Amber, also a diver, knew the feeling of a lost wedding ring. Amber lost hers five years ago in a parking lot and has never recovered it.

The couples planned to meet at 9 a.m. on Sunday for the dive, two hours before the splash park was to open.

“I couldn’t see more than five inches in front of my face, so I had her stay on the surface and had her monitor from there, and I started doing a circular pattern search,” Brian Harvey said.

Brian has recovered an ATV, a truck, and pieces of broken equipment from Kansas lakes, but the Livesay’s ring proved a different kind of challenge. The sun wasn’t above the lake yet, so they couldn’t catch any light rays reflecting off the diamonds. The metal detector Brian used caught several false positives with other metal in the mud at the bottom.

But Amber knows her husband’s diving skills well.

“I knew the minute the bubbles changed, I was like, ‘OH! They found something! It’s something!,” Amber said.

After 45 minutes of searching, Brian brought the ring back up to the surface where it was eventually reunited with its rightful owner.

“I can imagine how I would have felt if I got mine back…kinda cool,” Amber said.

“It really made our day,” Brian said.

Brian is a DiveMaster at Amber Waves Diving Co.