Student divers recover woman’s engagement ring from bottom of Hudson River
Six commercial-diving students searched by feel in 12 to 15 feet of murky water after the ring rolled off the deck at Billy Joe’s Ribworks in Newburgh.
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A Hudson Valley woman who watched her engagement ring roll off a restaurant deck and disappear into the Hudson River thought it was gone for good. Less than 24 hours later, a group of student divers had it back on her finger.
Denise Rivera, 47, of Port Jervis, was having lunch with her sister and brother-in-law Tuesday at Billy Joe’s Ribworks in Newburgh when she pulled the ring slightly off her finger to rub an irritated spot underneath.
“It just slipped off,” Rivera said. “It rolled off the table, rolled on the floor and then off the dock and into the water. And my heart dropped.”
Rivera became engaged to her fiancé, Alfred Gonzalez, in May, just three months after the two reconnected through a mutual friend. They later realized they had attended middle school together in Queens but had run in different social circles. The ring wasn’t insured, and Rivera said she was devastated.
After getting home, Rivera called Billy Joe’s and learned that students from Hudson Valley Commercial Diving happened to be at the restaurant on a break from training and offered to help.
“They put me in touch with her, and we told her we would come down to find the ring for her, and that’s what we did,” said dive instructor and school owner Christian Dougherty.
The next morning, Rivera met Dougherty and six of his students at the restaurant. They reviewed surveillance video to pinpoint where the ring entered the water. Dougherty said the Hudson is about 12 to 15 feet deep beneath that part of the deck, with essentially no underwater visibility.
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“There’s zero visibility,” Dougherty said. “They do everything by feel down here.”
The students spent nearly two hours searching through mud and debris before deciding to scoop mud from the river bottom into buckets and empty it along the shoreline.
“Believe it or not, it was the second bucket,” Dougherty said.
Dive student Kevin Morse, 53, of Mahwah, New Jersey, said he had to be “very careful and methodical” while searching for something so small. The search began around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, and the ring was found around 12:30 p.m.
“I was in complete shock and disbelief that they actually found it,” Rivera said.
Remarkably, Rivera isn’t the first Billy Joe’s customer to lose a wedding ring there. Owner Jonathan Gatsik said it’s happened three times—and all three rings have been recovered.
“These amazing guys found it for us,” Gatsik said. “We’re really happy about that. Only happy endings at Billy Joe’s.”
Dougherty owns Hudson Valley Commercial Diving in Newburgh, where students undergo a 16-month program to become commercial divers and underwater welders. The six students involved in Rivera’s search are graduating next week. Dougherty said the school regularly gets calls from people who have dropped valuables into the water and that they are willing to help for free in most cases.
Rivera said the divers didn’t ask her for anything in return.
“They were just angels there at the right place at the right time, and they came to help,” she said. “No questions asked.”
Rivera and Gonzalez haven’t set a wedding date yet, but she already knows a few people she’d like to see there.
“Hopefully they can make it to the wedding,” Rivera said.
