Hot air balloon disaster: Vicar drops engagement ring over the side

Posted by Tom Moran on Dec 9th, 2009 in Life & Style | 0 comments

The Lord works in mysterious ways, vicar James Ng must have thought after dropping the engagement ring meant for his girlfriend over the side of a hot air balloon.

Mr Ng, 27, had hidden the 1-carat ring in his camera case as the pair drifted happily over rural Ohio last October.

But in what was set to be a romantic proposal to girlfriend Sonya Bostic, a 27-year-old teacher, Mr Ng accidentally fumbled his camera case over the side and watched in horror as it fell 500 feet into the woods.

“My first thought was don’t tell her, and buy another ring – [but] it took me forever to afford the one I had,” Mr Ng said.

But Ms Bostic cottoned on, leaving Mr Ng with little choice but to drop onto bended knee and pop the question. She said yes.

Wal-Mart came to the rescue and by the following week, Ms Bostic was proudly sporting a $9 (£5.50) ring on her engagement finger.

But Mr Ng refused to accept that the ring was lost forever and in a move that would impress any Yorkshireman, he began mapping the coordinates of the balloon’s journey across the sky in a bid to find the lost camera case.

Together with a friend, he began an arduous search of the area, cutting through the brambles with a machete.

“We had maps and a very clear plan of all the ground we needed to cover,” said Mr Ng.

Eventually, after a week-long search of the three-mile-square area, they found the case. The camera had gone, but the $2,000 ring was still inside.

“I think the first thing I said was holy cow,” said Mr Ng. “Then I called Sonya right away.”

The couple plan to marry in June.

Hat tip to the Telegraph

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