Watch: Middlesbrough woman reunited with her lost 60-year-old engagement ring

  • Watch the moment a woman is reunited with her lost ring.

An act of kindness has reunited a woman from Middlesbrough with her engagement ring after her neighbour managed to track it down with his metal detector.

Elsie Brown was gardening at her home in Easterside when her engagement ring, given to her by her late husband, slipped off of her finger and landed in the waste.

It was not until a week later when the 85-year-old noticed it was missing - just a few days before the green bin collection was due.

Luckily for her, Lee Smith, 41, was visiting his partner who lives on the opposite side of the road.

Lee has known Elsie for most of his life. Credit: Evening Gazette.

As a keen detectorist with his own small business, Smoggysearchers, Lee often uses his metal detector to find hidden roman coins and other trinkets with his children and other like-minded people who enjoy the hobby.

Lee said: "Her son saw me with my metal detector, as I've done the front garden with the kids a few times, and came over and told me what had happened. So I went over and asked her if she wanted me to search for it now.

"I searched the front garden and there was no signal there, then I thought the only place it could actually be was in the green waste bin.

"I tipped out the top layer and scattered it over the garden, put the metal detector over the top and still couldn't find it so in the end I stuck the detector in the top of the bin whilst it was tipped over and finally found the signal."

Lee's video of the heart-warming moment the ring was returned has already gone viral on TikTok, with over 300,000 thousand views in just a few days.

Having known Elsie and her family for a very long time, the moment was especially emotional for not just the Brown family, but for Lee as well.

He added: "When the pinpoint metal detector started screaming and I saw the gold, that's when I started crying.

"She was absolutely over the moon to have it back, she was telling me she'd had it on her finger for sixty years. She lost her husband quite a while back now as well so it just felt even better to reunite her with it."