Niki Mack and Corey Berebitsky, Lakewood, Ohio couple thank Cleveland firefighters after fishing engagement ring from sewer after falling off during photo-shoot.
A bride-to-be lost her diamond engagement ring down a storm drain during what was supposed to be a ‘magical photo shoot’ with her fiancé after turning to flick an object off her future husband’s trousers, only for the bauble on her finger to come flying off and forever lost.
Niki Mack and Corey Berebitsky were taking engagement photos at the Italian Cultural Garden in Cleveland, Ohio on Nov. 24 when disaster struck, News5 Cleveland reported.
The couple had already had to reschedule their shoot with a professional photographer due to bad weather on their first two dates, but that Sunday turned out to be a ‘beautiful fall day,’ Berebitsky told the outlet.
At the very start of the photo shoot, however, the couple’s photographer Emily Ruth noticed that the groom-to-be had something on his pants.
Mack went to brush it off, and the quick movement sent her ring flying from her finger right into a storm sewer, People reported.
‘My fiancée went off to wipe off whatever was on my pants, and as she was doing so there was a ‘ting’ sound and she looked down and the ring was not on her hand,’ Berebitsky told People.
‘My heart dropped.’
The ‘ting’ sound heard was the diamond ring hitting the bottom of the sewer drain.
‘Niki was surprisingly calm,’ Berebitsky recalled. ‘Myself, the first thing that goes through my head is, ‘Oh my God, we’ve been pushing off the ring resizing for so long, and of course this happens.”
Mack remained calm because she could still see her ring in the drain. Meanwhile, Berebitsky says his ‘heart dropped’ and he internally panicked about how they were going to get it out.
Making the loss even more poignant was the fact that the ring contained diamond baguettes from the rings of both Berebitsky’s and Mack’s grandmothers.
‘Money is one thing. You lose it, the insurance can pay for it or whatever,’ Berebitsky said. ‘But you can’t get the diamonds back from family.’
But where there is a will, there is a way.
After calling for help, a team of local firefighters managed to save the lost ring.
A crew from Cleveland Fire Station 30 arrived in under 10 minutes and were able to fish the precious ring out of the sewer with a metal rod.
‘They were extremely helpful and able to get the ring out,’ Berebitsky told the publication. ‘I personally could not watch as they pulled it up just for fear it was going to fall [back] down. But they were very calm and confident.’
The firefighters pulled the ring out in about five minutes.
‘It was actually extremely sparkly,’ Berebitsky said. ‘It’s like the sewer water cleaned it.’
The ring has since been dropped off at a jewelry store for resizing.
Mack and Berebitsky — who met on the dating app Hinge in November 2021 — plan to celebrate their wedding in October 2025.
To thank the firefighters for their help in reuniting them with the ring, the couple plans to send them a gift.
