Couple surprised to find $400,000 wedding ring husband accidentally threw in trash

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The next morning, around 7 a.m., she saw the paper towels and asked her husband to throw them away.

When Carla Squitieri came home after dropping their daughter off at school, she panicked when she could not find her rings.

"She said, 'Have you seen my rings?' and I said, 'I threw them in the trash,'" Bernie Squitieri, 54, told ABC News. "She started going berserk … she started crying."

The Clarkson Valley, Missouri, couple called the garbage company, Meridian Waste Services in Bridgeton, Missouri, and were told that the truck was heading to a landfill.

Bernie Squitieri said he was able to convince Meridian to have the truck meet the couple in 30 minutes away in O’Fallon, Missouri, after calling his city's mayor, whom he knows.

"He said, 'I'm not calling to demand anything. I'm just calling to say whatever it is we can do, we'll do it,'" Clarkson Valley Mayor Scott Douglass told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch Wednesday. "I thought, well, where there's a will, there may be a way. We'll get after it, see if we can find it."

There were about 8 tons of trash to look through, making the chances of finding the ring slim.

But Carla Squitieri was insistent.

"Twenty-five minutes later, (the manager) pulled (the ring) out and said, 'Here it is.' It was crazy," Bernie Squitieri said. "I thought we were going to be there for two days."

"Ten times out of 10, we don't find something like that," Evans said. "It was the best feeling in the world to find that ring and give it back. I was raised a certain way and I knew it'd have more meaning to them than it would have for me."

Bernie Squitieri said that the rings were insured, but being able to have the ring back had more sentimental value than money.

Still, Evans was able to go home with a $500 reward for his effort.