NHS nurse finds engagement ring in garden after two-and-a-half years

An NHS nurse said she “cried with happiness” having found her engagement ring two-and-a-half years after losing it in the garden.

Alison Brown is in training as an advanced clinical practitioner and lost her ring around 30 months ago after hanging her clothes on the washing line at her home in Kent.

Mrs Brown’s husband Steve, 42, said his wife was “absolutely heartbroken” – but as it turned out, all was not lost.

“Last year we dug up a huge amount of our garden to do the patio,” Mr Brown told the PA news agency.

“We searched again but couldn’t find anything, but that soil went onto one of our vegetable patches.

“(On Sunday) I was mowing the grass and she came running over screaming. I thought she’d chopped half of her foot off with the shovel.”

The screaming was of the happy variety however, as Mrs Brown had stumbled across her cherished ring by chance.

“I am always optimistic, that’s my nature. I just knew one day I would find it,” she told PA.

“I believe in destiny. It was amazing, I screamed so much. Then I cried with happiness, feeling faint with emotion.”

The Browns will be looking forward to 15 years as a married couple in September, but finding the ring came with additional significance due to Mrs Brown’s work as a nurse.

“I felt blessed to find it, yet guilty I was happy at a time when so many are suffering in the world,” she said. “Something I’m witnessing first hand.”

Mrs Brown said that her current work in the battle against the coronavirus pandemic is “something in my 20 years I’ve never experienced”, adding “this is demanding all our knowledge, skills, resilience and teamwork to plan and cope with a destructive invisible enemy.

“Finding my ring today has given me even more strength and positivity.”