Man's 'miracle in Dubai' after wedding ring gets lost at sea
A man staying with family in Dubai was devastated when the wedding ring he had worn constantly for 51 years slipped off his finger in the sea.
Chris Brightmore was with his wife, Kathy, visiting their daughter, Sarah, and her family, for two months. The week before Christmas, they spent the day on Kite Beach, in Jumeira.
“The sea there was lovely and warm so I decided to have a swim,” Chris, a retired policeman, said. “As I was swimming back to the beach my wedding ring fell off in about 8ft of water - this was the first time the ring had been off my finger in 51 years.”
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Chris immediately dived down but could not spot the ring on the sandy sea bed. “I said a little prayer while I was swimming around. For some reason, I said to myself, ‘I am going to find this ring’.”
Expecting a telling-off from his wife, he said he “plucked up the courage” while swimming back to shore to tell her what had happened. Instead of being cross he said Kathy was “kindness personified” and spent the next hour trying to find the ring with him.
“Without face masks and snorkels, it was impossible. Exhausted, we finally conceded defeat.”
Chris said his son-in-law, Philip, suggested they publicise the loss on a website called British Dads in Dubai. “We did, and the response was overwhelming.
“Among the dozens of kindly responses, one man offered to loan us his underwater metal detector and another said he had his own jewellery shop and that he would make me a replacement as close to the original as possible and, because of the intensely sentimental value, he would give it to me for free.
“I was really touched by the kindness of these offers and decided to take up the one for the metal detector.” Two days later, Chris and Philip returned to Kite Beach kitted out with snorkels, face masks - and the metal detector.
“We spent two hours diving to the sea bed but the water was so buoyant that it was impossible to stay down long enough to search.” Another couple swam up and asked if Chris was “the gentleman that has lost his wedding ring”.
Chris said: “The man said, ‘well for someone who has been married that long and has never had the ring off his finger until now, it would be my honour to help you find it, if you would allow me’. It turned out that he was a former professional diver who liked to dive in Dubai as a hobby at weekends.”
With “proper gear”, including a weighted belt and a floating snorkel, the Good Samaritan was able to crawl along the seabed with the metal detector, and the search resumed. “After another two hours Phil and I were convinced that the game was up, despite all our best efforts.
“We were just climbing out of the water when our diver friend surfaced and shouted ‘Eureka. He was holding my wedding ring in his gloved fingers.
“He had detected it in about 10ft of water under 3in of sand. This was a miracle in the Persian Gulf.
“I was delighted but, strangely, not surprised as I had, all along, the conviction that the ring would be found.” Chris, a former detective chief superintendent in London, retired to Louth after his son and family had moved from the capital to Lincolnshire; Chris and Kathy then moved to Cleethorpes last August.
He said: “My brother Mike was also a chief superintendent for Grimsby and Cleethorpes. I was a magistrate until I retired from that.”
Chris said they had posted again on the British Dads page that the ring had been found. “There must have been more than 200 responses, with people saying how it had restored their faith in human kindness and how it was truly a miracle.
“I was glowing for the rest of our time there.” He recalled buying the ring, and one in a matching design for Kathy, from Hatton Gardens with the “bit of money we had left” after they were newly married.
He said: “There’s not chance in hell I will lose it again. It has never been off my finger before, or been broken, or anything.
“It will come off my finger again - but only if I decide to go swimming, when I will leave it safely behind.”