Trevor Van Camp's proposal to girlfriend Danielle Jenkins at a ski resort in Michigan went awry when he dropped the engagement ring through the suspension bridge grating. The ring fell 118 feet into snow below the 1,200-foot-long illuminated bridge.
"We panicked for a minute, and then we looked at each other and said, 'We need to find it,'" Van Camp recalled. The couple searched for over two hours using a metal detector before resort night shift snowmaking supervisor Pat Harper and colleagues took over. Harper found the ring after 20 to 30 minutes of searching, spotting it buried in dirt beneath footprints. "I sat there for a minute and thought, 'There's no way you just found that,'" Harper said. Jenkins praised Harper, saying "he saved the day."