"I did not think we were ever going to see it again," said Lynn Andrews.
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Lynn and her husband Ninos were visiting from Chicago on board their friends' boat at a yacht club in Cambridge.
They were there to enjoy the big fireworks show the following day.
But trouble began when Lynn took her rings off to put on some sunscreen.
"She put her rings in my pocket, which I said was not a good idea," said Ninos.
Everything was fine until Ninos got hot and pulled off that shirt on the dock - rings included.
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"I said a bad word and then took a deep breath and I said, 'Everything's going to be fine. We're going to figure this out.'"
Two of Lynn's rings stayed on the dock, but her big diamond ring fell right into the river.
"The lady who runs the marina came over and said, 'Drop a weight on a string and memorize where you lost it to mark it.'"
As luck would have it, the Cambridge Fire Department's dive team keeps their boat there, and divers Jeremy Marrache and Eric Moore had some new gear they wanted to try out.
When their boss gave the project the green light, they dove right in.
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"Truly, within a minute, Jeremy comes up with it, screams, 'I've got it! I've got it!' and blew me a kiss and I blew him a kiss," said Lynn. "They all had wives and they all knew how important this was and how sentimental it was to us."
The couple didn't want to disclose how much the ring is worth, but they said the symbol of their love is priceless to them.
So was the effort of the firefighters who literally dove in to help.
"We definitely have a story for our kids one day, that's for sure when we pass this ring down," said Lynn.
Marrache said he was able to find the ring pretty easily because it was laying on its side. When he shined a flashlight on it, the diamond sparkled brightly.