Sanitation workers to the rescue

An Attleboro, Mass., woman is calling workers for the city’s sanitation company heroes after they helped her dig through tons of stinking garbage to find five rings, including her engagement and wedding bands, she inadvertently threw away, according to The Sun Chronicle. It’s just the latest example of sanitation employees going above and beyond the call of duty.

In Attleboro, Deb Kirby’s saga began when she took the rings off to dry them after washing her hands. She wrapped them in paper towels. After eating dinner and watching television, she forgot the rings were in the towels and tossed them while cleaning up.

When she realized her error the next day, it was too late. The trash had already been picked up. In fact, it was on its way to the incinerator.

Kirby called Waste Management, the company that collects the city’s garbage. Company officials identified the truck that picked up at Kirby’s house, turned it around and diverted it to a transfer station.

The truck dumped its load, and Kirby and a crew of Waste Management workers started searching. It took them 30 minutes, but they found the rings.

“They could have said, ‘Lady, those rings are gone, there’s no chance,” Kirby told the newspaper. “But they didn’t.”

Must be something about those sanitation guys. In April, a pair of sewer workers in Kuna, Idaho, plucked a diamond ring out of the city’s sewers. They cleaned it off and turned it into the mayor’s office, hoping to contact the owner.

In February, sanitation crews in San Rafael, Calif., returned a woman’s gold necklace three months after she accidentally flushed it down a toilet. A maintenance worker cleaned the necklace and dropped it off at the woman’s home.