WORCESTER, Mass. - Francis and Mary Jane Trainor got married in 1959.
Mary Jane had worn her wedding ring every day since then up until 1991, when she passed away.
Since her passing, Francis has worn his late wife's wedding ring on a chain around his neck, along with a cross.
However, while running errands at Market 32 on Sunday, Trainor's chain broke and fell on the floor. While another shopper spotted the broken chain, the ring and the cross had fallen into a storm drain.
"She passed away in 1991, I carried it ever since and I'd love to get it back," said Trainor.
"She said, 'I found this chain, is this yours?' And I said, 'Yeah there was a chain with a cross on it,'" said Trainor. "But I said there was a wedding ring on it also."
Inside the store, an army of people wanting to help set up an intricate operation to recover the ring. Market 32 contacted Drain-A-Way, who then called in Helgerson's Excavation for backup.
On Wednesday, the recovery team placed heavy equipment into the drain, pulling all water and debris out.
Then, they headed to Helgerson Excavation's homebase in Charlton to start draining it out.
"We've got some catch basin waste with supposedly a piece of jewelry in it," said Jeff Helgerson of Helgerson Excavation.
Sifting through by hand and with the help of a metal detector, searching through 1,000 gallons of water and debris, hard work is being put into locating the irreplaceable.
"[We're] just helping a guy out," said Helgerson. "Just hopefully we can get his jewelry back. If the ring's in there, we'll find it."
The search is still underway, but Trainor is already extremely grateful for all the work put in just to help him find his ring.
"These guys are just fantastic, really," said Trainor.
After hours searching for the ring through the debris pumped from the storm drain, unfortunately the ring nor the cross were found.
While the search through the water and debris proved unsuccessful, Trainor is still hoping someone out there will find and give him his ring back.