Diamond ring flushed and found

Owner asked the city of Fresno to help find gem lost at theater.
By Matt Leedy / The Fresno Bee

(Updated Thursday, July 6, 2006, 12:01 PM)

Two Fresno city sewer workers peered down a manhole, saw the glint of a diamond ring and knew they had beaten nearly impossible odds.

The gold ring, with its half-carat diamond, had been flushed down a movie theater toilet five days earlier. It took Steven Gibson and Leonard Safford less than 20 minutes Monday to find it in the sewer system's 1,400-mile maze.

"All I saw was a bunch of quarters and Leonard said, 'Wait a minute, what's that?'" Gibson said.

"It truly was a million-to-one shot," said James T. Wilson, a sewer maintenance manager.

On June 28, Christina Christianson's engagement ring whooshed down a toilet when her reach was a split second slower than an automatic flush.

Christianson, then in a bathroom at Regal Manchester Stadium 16 movie theater in central Fresno, thought her ring was lost forever.

"I felt all the blood in my body rush to my toes," Christianson said.

She panicked. She screamed. She scared every other woman in the bathroom.

"A lady in the stall next to me said, 'Oh my God, are you OK?'" Christianson said.

The 33-year-old had just moved her wedding and engagement rings to her pinky finger. Christianson's arm recently had been broken and her hand and fingers were a little swollen, making it uncomfortable for her to wear the rings on her ring finger.

When both rings slipped off her finger, Christianson was quick enough to only grab her wedding ring.

The theater's security staff closed the bathroom, hoping that would keep the ring from getting flushed any further down the sewer line. A plumber removed the toilet and took a look, but found nothing.

Steven Gibson, a public utilities worker with the city of Fresno, shows the tool used Wednesday to flush out a sewer line and find the ring lost by Christina Christianson. The tool is dropped down a manhole and stretched along the sewer line, where a blast of water moves sediment back through the line.
Kurt Hegre / The Fresno Bee
Christianson had almost given up hope and broke the news to her fiancé, a construction worker on a job in Redwood City. The two have been engaged for eight years and she wears both rings, even though they haven't set a date.

On Monday, she e-mailed the city asking for help.

"We saw the e-mail and thought, 'Boy, this is a challenge,'" said Robert Garcia, a management analyst in the city's sewer-maintenance division. "But we decided right away we'd give it our best shot."

If the ring was stuck in the theater's sewer system, city workers wouldn't be able to find it because they can't fish through private property. And if the ring had made its way into a wide city sewer line it would have been flushed miles away.

Gibson and Safford decided to search an 8-inch sewer line about 120 feet from the theater.

Two hours after reading the e-mail, they hit pay dirt.

On Wednesday, after Warner Co. Jewelers cleaned and polished the ring for free, it was returned to Christianson's right hand.

She shook excitedly while putting it back on.

"It's beautiful," Christianson said, looking at the ring's marquee-cut diamond and its band lined with smaller diamonds. "I can't believe you guys actually found it. I'm so amazed. I'm impressed. I'm speechless."

She's not sure when she'll get married, but she was certain of one thing:

"I'm going to go get it sized and fitted right now."

The reporter can be reached at mleedy@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6208. Christina Christianson shows off the ring she accidentally lost last week at a Fresno movie theater.
Kurt Hegre / The Fresno Bee