Woman Loses Precious Gold Pendant In The Ocean: Total Stranger Finds It For Her!

When you lose something at the beach, and more so in the waters near the beach, it is usually a goner. And in case it happens to be a tiny gold pendant, you might as well forget about retrieving it. When a Chinese immigrant living near Daytona Beach, Florida, lost a precious pendant she was wearing while she was frolicking in the water with her friends, she lost all hope of getting it back. Mimi Chen, the woman who lost the pendant, told WESH News that it was originally given to her mom by her dad at the time of their wedding. It was then given to Mimi by her mom as heirloom.

The 24-carat gold pendant was attached to a chain she was wearing and she didn’t realize it had slipped off the chain. By the time she saw it was gone, it was too late. Still, in order to try her luck finding it, Mimi scourged the area she and her friends were — for close to three hours — with no luck and was in tears. That’s when she decided to look for it in a slightly different way.

First, posted a Craigslist ad telling about the lost pendant. Second, she decided to get herself a metal detector in order to aid her search. The ad was spotted by Wes Wade who owns a pawn shop near the beach. Wade, who also happens to be the president of the local metal detecting club, soon responded — but did not hear back from her.

Call it a twist of fate. One fine day, Chen herself landed at Wes’ pawn shop which by the way, also sells metal detectors. As expected, she was looking to buy a metal detector for herself to do the pendant searching all by herself.

After Wes realized she was the same person who had posted the Craigslist ad, he chipped in to help her. Mimi then showed Wade the area where she thought she lost the pendant. Wade started looking for it and finally, after 24 hours, the unbelievable happened: He found the pendant! There was waist deep water in the area where he found it. To make matters even more difficult, the pendant was wedged a foot under the mud.

He said:

“The water was about waist deep for me, and it was down about a foot when I dug it, below the sand.”

As expected, Mimi Chen was ecstatic when she realized that the precious pendant had been found by a total stranger who went out of his way to help her.

“Thank you, thank you. Made me feel very good. Made me feel lucky again,” she said.

Wes Wade was offered a reward by Mimi’s family which he politely declined.

“It’s nice to give the stuff back, especially if you know who it belongs to, especially if it’s a family heirloom,” Wade said later.