While tidying up their villa as they prepared to leave the park late last week, Paul Campanale dumped a cardboard bowl, not knowing the container inside it held his wife Karen's engagement, wedding and five-year-anniversary rings.
Park employees warned the couple from Worcester, Mass., that recovering the jewelry was all but impossible. So on Friday, the Campanales and their two children loaded onto a Magical Express bus and headed to the airport.
Back at the Wilderness Lodge resort, executive housekeeper Drew Weaver realized that trash from the Campanales' villa hadn't reached the industrial-size compactor yet. He and seven other volunteers donned protective clothing, emptied a parking lot bin and waded through bag after bag of rubbish to find the rings. And they did.
Paul Campanale, 37, a chemist, received the good news on his cell phone and Weaver met the family to deliver the rings. Karen Campanale, 35, a teacher, said she was shocked by the find.
"That's not the first time we've gone through trash -- oh, no," Weaver said. "We don't always find things. Many times we come up empty. But we didn't this time."
[Associated
Press; By NAFEESA SYEED]
Copyright 2008 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |