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Sanitation crew helps woman find wedding, engagement rings she accidentally trashed

Posted at 4:52 PM, Mar 27, 2017
and last updated 2017-03-27 18:52:50-04

NEW YORK -- Department of Sanitation workers helped a New York City woman find the wedding and engagement rings she accidentally threw away with the trash, according to WPIX.

Last weekend, Shannon Lombardo was cleaning her wedding and engagement rings when she put them on a paper towel.

The next day, she realized she accidentally trashed the rings with a pile of tissues. At this point, the garbage bag had already been thrown down the trash chute.

Shannon called the sanitation department and explained what happened. The department was able to pinpoint where the trash was taken — a transfer station in New Jersey.

Sanitation workers identified which truck likely had the ring. With the help of four sanitation employees, Shannon started searching the 800 bags of trash.

The group had only been searching for an hour when Gabriel Moreno, a supervisor, opened up a napkin and found the rings.

"The wife was ecstatic and the husband... he couldn't believe we actually found it," said Moreno.

Shannon and her husband, Jim, will celebrate their ninth wedding anniversary in May. They said the rings hold special meaning.

"It had nothing to do with the money, it had to do with the sentimental value," Jim told WPIX.

"Thank you, thank you from beginning to end, from 311 to the Sanitation Department, to the guys at the dump, they did their jobs and they just cared," said Shannon.