Sewage workers recover 98-year-old Olympia woman's wedding ring

OLYMPIA — It was a messy job, but two municipal employees painstakingly searched a sewage line and recovered a wedding ring.

The effort began after the Public Works Department in the state capital got a letter from Alma F. Coate-Wilson, 98, who wrote that she had accidentally flushed her $8,000, 1.6-carat wedding ring down the toilet in the middle of the night two months ago.

Gary Franks, a public works supervisor, said the department rarely gets such requests and usually doesn't have the time to grant them but decided to try this time because of the circumstances.

Maintenance workers Bill Davis and Jean Wright started by sending a type of camera through the sewer line. When that didn't work, they flushed the main line, blocking solids using pea gravel. Finally, they went through the solids with a garden hose and found the ring.

Four city employees returned it to Coate-Wilson this week.

"I was the happiest girl in the world," Coate-Wilson told The Olympian newspaper.

"I was floored," she said. "I knew it was forever."

Coate-Wilson, a retired teacher, said she was given the ring 39 years ago by Gilbert Coate, to whom she was married for 23 years.

"Until my death, I wanted to have it (the ring), of course," she said.