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Disney Workers Find Rings Mistakenly Thrown Away

Group Waded Through Bags Of Garbage To Find Rings

POSTED: 5:18 am EDT April 22, 2008
UPDATED: 6:37 pm EDT April 22, 2008

Walt Disney World seems to have worked its magic on a Massachusetts couple who accidentally threw away three platinum and diamond wedding rings.

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"I was trying to get everything all packed up and ready to go, and I went to put my rings on and that's when I realized they were gone. And I asked my husband if he had seen them," Karen Campanale said.

Campanale's husband, Paul, had dumped a cardboard bowl into the trash the night before, not knowing the container held his wife's engagement, wedding and five-year-anniversary rings. Paul Campanale then took the bag to the resort's trash room.

The family went to park employees asking for help, but were told that finding the rings was all but impossible.

"He took the trash out and brought it to the trash recycling room. And from there it went to this massive trash room for the hotel," Karen Campanale said.

On Friday, the Campanales and their two young children loaded onto a Magical Express bus and headed to the airport.

At the same time, Wilderness Lodge resort executive housekeeper Drew Weaver realized that trash from the Campanales' villa hadn't reached the industrial-size compactor yet. He and seven other volunteers donned protective clothing, emptied a parking lot bin and waded through bag after bag of rubbish until they found the rings.

Paul Campanale, 37, a chemist, received the good news on his cell phone and Weaver met the family at the bus' next stop. Karen Campanale, 35, a teacher, said she was shocked by the find.

"That's not the first time we've gone through trash -- oh, no," Weaver later said. "We don't always find things. Many times we come up empty. But we didn't this time."

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