Trash collectors help Manhattan Beach man find wedding ring he mistakenly threw out

A Manhattan Beach man nearly lost his wedding ring for good after mistakenly throwing it out with an old carry-on bag.

On Tuesday, Paul Bukauskas was readying to go on a trip when he began loading up an old bag. But he decided last minute it was probably time to upgrade to something newer.

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He emptied the old bag and put it in the crash and went on with his day. Hours later, the realization struck.

“I put [the bag] in the trash on Tuesday because Tuesday is trash day. And while sitting on the couch it struck me that my ring was in a box in that bag,” Bukauskas said.

He had cleaned out everything from the old bag before taking out to the trash—everything but his wedding ring.

He raced to a Waste Management facility in Palmdale, hoping to track down the truck carrying his trash. WM communications manager Vanessa Caustrita said staff immediately responded to his frantic, urgent call.

“It was all hands on deck, everybody sounding the alarm, looking for this high value item,” she said.

The truck was eventually tracked down in Carson where it was headed to the landfill.

“I got to Carson, I couldn’t find anybody, and it’s trucks going in, trucks going out, I started pounding on windows,” Bukauskas told KTLA’s Ellina Abovian.

Finally, after hours of emotional stress, they located truck 108199.

“As they back the truck up and start unloading it, I saw my bag fall out. And as these guys rushed to help me, I reached into it and found the ring. There it was.” 

Bukauskas, preparing to celebrate his 10th wedding anniversary this December, called it a miracle.

“So many things had to happen, ten minutes later it would’ve been on the way to Palmdale, 15 minutes later, if I hadn’t realized it, I wouldn’t even have been able to get there in time,” Bukauskas said. “All these things worked together, all these people came together and made it work for me.”