After Bothell 4-year-old flushes wedding ring, city workers go to find it

A Bothell mother has her wedding ring back, thanks to city workers who found it in the sewer.

Anna Cornish realized her ring was missing last month. She took it off to give her children a bath and left it on the bathroom counter. It was her husband who noticed it was gone. The couple immediately woke up their two children. Four-year-old Landon had an answer they did not want to hear.

"He said he flushed it down the toilet. We were just in shock," said Anna Cornish.  They called a plumber that night to bring in a camera to search their pipes but were told the ring wasn't there.

Cornish said she was sad and wondered the best way to parent their son for flushing the ring.  "He didn't know the magnitude of the situation, so to parent in a way he would understand the loss but not necessarily the magnitude." They decided to take away his blanket for a few days to help him understand the loss.

On Wednesday, a month after the ring disappeared, Ryan Cornish saw a  crew from City of Bothell Public Works near his house. He told them about the ring.

Worker Jose Cervantes was determined to find the ring and had an idea of where to look. He said there is a pipe that has a "belly" not far from the Cornish home. He said that's where debris often gets stuck. He got permission from his boss to search it on Thursday.  The crew sucked up all of sewage and debris in the sewer pipe and dumped it out.   They used a hose to spray off the pile of debris to search for the ring.

"It's like kind of like gold mining except only we're mining through human sewer, " joked Cervantes. They used a flashlight and found the ring. " It was shocking, amazing. We got the ring. Holy cow, it's a one in a million shot." The men were so excited, they took pictures of the ring, even put it on their pinky finger.

They called Ryan Cornish. He picked it up and took it to be cleaned. Thursday night he had his son suprise his wife with it.

"He goes, ' mom, I'm so sorry. Will you please forgive me', and I opened up the box with the ring inside it," said Anna Cornish. This is her second ring, her first ring was stolen a couple of years ago. She just got this ring in February.

Cervantes was glad he got to help. "I was really glad for his son to be able to give it back to him and hopefully he doesn't feel so bad about flushing it down the toilet. He still should be, doesn't flush anything down the toilet," said Cervantes.

When asked what he has to say to the men who found his mommy's ring, Landon Cornish answered "Thank you for finding the ring city workers."

When his mom asked what lesson he learned, he answered, "Not to throw things in the toilet."

Landon will thank the workers in person next week. His parents are getting the ring insured.

Cox Media Group