The city of Watertown's recycling chief Matt Bacon is being showered with accolades for helping a distressed woman recover a diamond that accidentally ended up in a municipal Big Belly trash compactor.
According to published reports, the Massachusetts woman had been shopping at her favorite supermarket on Mt. Auburn Street just west of Boston when she decided to recycle some boxes. As she pushed the cardboard into the blue receptacle, she bumped the top of her engagement on the bin. She didn't realize until she got home that the center diamond of her three-stone ring was gone and it was likely in the compactor.
The woman, who asked not to be named, called Watertown's 311 non-emergency number on Friday hoping for a miracle as she explained her plight to dispatcher Laura Murray.
"You could definitely tell that she was panicked," Murray told Boston's ABC affiliate, WCVB.
On Monday morning, the recycling chief was on the case. The recycling bins are emptied three times a week — which included Mondays — so he quickly contacted the city's recycling contractor and ordered the provider to hold off on emptying that specific unit.
Then he called the woman to arrange a time when they could meet up at the Big Belly trash compactor.
By Monday afternoon, Bacon and the woman were sifting through some ugly garbage. The bin was supposed to contain only recyclables, but they also found a lot of Dunkin' Donuts coffee, trash and muck.
“We gloved-it up and I brought a trash bag so we could sort the contents,” Bacon told watertownmanews.com.
After about 10 minutes, Bacon spied the elusive gemstone that had been on the woman's ring finger for 20-plus years.
"The odds of finding the stone were extremely small, yet Matt went out of his way to help," the woman told Watertown officials in a statement. "He sat on the sidewalk next to me so he could help me scan the piles of garbage. When he said, 'There it is,' I was stunned. I hugged him so hard he almost fell over."
The City of Watertown shared the story on its social media pages.
The post read, "We’re thrilled the missing gem was reunited with its owner, and kudos to Matt for turning trash into treasure and proving our Recycling Program Manager really knows how to rock!"
On Tuesday, the woman expressed her appreciation by delivering goodie baskets to the Watertown Department of Public Works (DPW).
“I am so delighted and so grateful,” the woman told watertownmanews.com. “I love to celebrate people who go above and beyond.”
"It's part of the job," Bacon told WCVB. "DPW is happy to help."
Credits: Screen captures via wcvb.com.