SARASOTA COUNTY, Fla. (SNN) – It was a trip for the books for one Connecticut couple vacationing down in Siesta Key at the end of October.
Their trip was off to a great start. They reunited with family and the man’s father gifted them some jewelry before things took an unfortunate turn.
“Okay, that’s it, we’ll never find it again,” Will Vieira said.
Will and Chloe Vieira said they saw Will’s father, Luis Vieira, for the first time in almost five years after he moved from Brazil to Orlando.
Luis had brought the couple something special.
“He gifted us a pair of rings as soon as we get there.” Will said. “First night is great, I’m very happy with the ring. We go to the beach.”
“That was the first mistake,” Chloe said.
The couple’s costly mistake came when Will wore his ring into the water.
“I check for the first time, the ring is there, the second time it’s there,” Will recalled. “And then the third time, my finger just slides right through, and I look at them.”
“And he just realized, ‘oh crap,’” Chloe said.
The family scraped the ocean floor for the glimmer of the ring beneath the surface.
Sadly, the current was unforgiving.
Eventually, they accepted defeat and thought it best to try to make the most out of what was left of their vacation.
“I’ll always remember Sarasota as the place I lost my ring,” Will said.
Chloe decided she would not give up, and turned to Sarasota Facebook groups.
The couple hoped for a small chance that someone would come across it and have the heart to return it to them.
One woman found a gold ring she thought matched the description of the gold ring they were looking for.
“Oh, this is perfect, this is probably it,” Chloe said. “She sent me the photo so we could confirm, it didn’t end up being it. You know, maybe in a few years that would be fine at some point if someone finds it.”
Shawn Rauch came along the next day, having never spoken to the couple, but he saw the post and decided to go give it a try.
“There were already guys out there looking for the ring, and neither of the two that were out there found it,” Rauch said. “So I asked them, ‘Did you guys go out in the later?’ And they said ‘No, it’s too cold.’ So I said, ‘Alright.”
Although Will and Chloe’s trip was short, he did not need long to strike gold.
“I took maybe 10 steps, and I got that unmistakable tone,” Rauch said. “I didn’t want to get too excited because you never really know until it’s in the scoop, and I scooped it up and there it was. You know, he said it was an 18 karat gold ring with his wife’s name ‘Chloe’ engraved into it.”
Not even a minute later, Raunch was holding the ring in his hand.
“They couldn’t believe it,” Rauch said. “And I couldn’t either.”
This was not his first recovery. With 10 years of experience under his belt and a YouTube channel detailing all of his finds, he was the right man for the job.
“We left knowing like, ‘Oh my gosh we’re going to get our ring back,’” Chloe said. “Was just amazing, I have no words.”
The pair of rings are the Vieira’s first authentic wedding bands. Although they have been married since 2019, they never had the additional funds to buy the real deals.
Now they have the real deals, and a trip they will never forget.
“He didn’t ask for anything in return, he just did it out of the kindness of his heart,” Chloe said. “And it was just such a good reminder at that moment that there really are still good people in the world.”
While the Vieira’s had left Siesta Key before Rauch could get the ring to them, he shipped it up to the couple in Connecticut.