Forget a needle...husband finds his wedding ring in a haystack after two week hunt
A HORROR-struck husband found himself faced with a real-life “needle in a haystack” situation – after losing his wedding ring in a barn full of straw.
John Tressider used a metal detector to find his wedding ring in a barn of haystacks
The odds may have been stacked against him, but John Tressider, 68, eventually found the band after a two-week hunt.
The grandfather was helping out on a relative’s farm when he realised his gold Celtic ring had come off his finger.
After finding it with the help of a metal detector he quipped: “It was literally like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
It took two weeks of hunting for the Celtic band before John found it
The ring was actually a replacement for his original, which was eaten 20 years ago by his dog Max
The ring was actually a replacement for his original one, which was eaten 20 years ago by his dog Max. Mr Tressider, a retired RSPCA superintendent from East Budleigh, Devon, spent two hours sifting through straw bales on the day he lost the ring.
It was literally like looking for a needle in a haystack
But it failed to turn up and, distraught, he was forced to head home to break the sad news to Sally, his wife of 33 years.
Resolute, he returned to the farm in St Mawes, Cornwall, a few days later for a second fruitless search before finally calling on his friend Tony Farrington, who lent him a metal detector.
Two weeks after first losing the ring, Mr Tressider searched the barn again, using the detector to comb the giant rows of haystacks.
John and Sally have been married for 33 years
'I’d had this Celtic wedding ring for 20 years', says John
The device finally went off after three hours of hunting, and he eventually spotted the ring camouflaged against the golden straw.
Mr Tressider explained: “I was helping out at my auntie’s farm and moving a stack of 200 or so straw bales from one barn to another.
“After moving about 100 of them I stopped for a rest and noticed, to my absolute horror, that I had lost my wedding ring.
“It was quite a loose fit anyway and the bale strings were tight and hard to grip, so it must have just pinged off.
“I didn’t know where to start looking.
'I was very relieved and to say my wife was overjoyed is an understatement', says John
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“After a few hours I eventually went home and told Sally. She wasn’t thrilled, put it that way.
“I’d had this Celtic wedding ring for 20 years. “It had been a replacement for the original one that I lost when a rescue dog I was looking after ate it. I followed him about doing his business for ages but never saw that ring again.
“I was determined I wasn’t going to lose a second one and was actually quite optimistic about finding it, because I knew it had to be in the barn somewhere.
“So when I went back to the barn with the metal detector I was very methodical.
“I was searching the second to bottom layer when the detector made a very distinctive beeping noise. I was very relieved and to say my wife was overjoyed is an understatement.”