Lost and found: Lake Norman diver swiftly recovers man’s lost wedding ring

LAKE NORMAN, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — A Lincoln County man is thanking his lucky stars that he knew the right person to call when he lost his wedding ring in Lake Norman.

Rob Cartwright was on the water with his kids this weekend when it slipped off his finger while he was pulling his son up by the life jacket.

“My wife’s going to kill me,” he says he thought. “Maybe.”

Cartwright called Philipp Stahala, also known as the Lake Norman Diver.

Stahala has been diving in the lake for 25 years.

He says he’s always found all sorts of things below the surface, so he decided to start a small side business out of it.

“[If] people lose anything off their dock, I’ll go retrieve it for them and hopefully reunite them with whatever they lost,” Stahala said.

The morning after Cartwright called, Stahala was on the water where Cartwright said he lost the ring.

“Just brought my flashlight and luckily I brought it, because it was dark and murky, and just shined it around for about five minutes and there was his ring sitting on top of the silt, maybe halfway out,” Stahala said.

Stahala says it’s the fastest he’s ever found anything. He rose up out of the water wearing it on his pinky finger.

Stahala says he’s most commonly asked to find people’s cell phones or sunglasses, but he’s gotten some unusual requests, too.

“This year I was asked to retrieve somebody’s prosthetic eye, so that’s the most odd and expensive item I’ve ever found,” he said.

Whatever Stahala is able to recover, whether it’s a cell phone or a wedding band, it’s going to mean something to whoever lost it.

“This is sentimental to me,” Cartwright said. “I didn’t pay a lot for it, but it is my wedding ring. We actually just celebrated our 8-year anniversary last week, so it’s important.”