LONDON: Newly engaged Indian-origin couple in the UK whose engagement ring fell into water have praised a "brilliant" diver who retrieved it from the bottom of England's largest natural lake.
Viki Patel, 25, from Edmonton, north London, proposed to Rebecca Chaukria, 26, from Birmingham, while they were having their photographs taken on the shores of the Windermere lake last week.
Patel popped the question to Rebecca and gave her the white gold and diamond ring during a trip to the Lake District. On May 24, they returned to the same location for more photographs on the jetty.
The couple were having photographs taken when the ring slipped off Chaukria's finger and fell into the water, the BBC reported.
The big moment had been delayed about five times as previous trips were postponed because of COVID-19 travel restrictions in the country.
The panicked couple initially tried to use the photographer's tripod to reach the ring, but it only pushed it further into the mud at the bottom of the lake. Patel said he tried to salvage the ring himself but the water was very cold and he could not see a thing.
Freediver Angus Hosking heard about the couple's plight from a friend and rushed down to the jetty as soon as he finished work. The 21-year-old had been helping clear trash from the lakes for three and a half years and had even set up a group to tackle the problem.
"As soon as I put my head under the water the visibility was terrible, so it didn't fill me with confidence. I couldn't see anything," Hosking told CNN. "It was just all silt -- really fine mud -- even if you drop a penny it goes straight to the bottom," he said.
Luckily after 20 minutes of searching with an underwater metal detector and a few false positives, Hosking scooped up the ring. Patel described Hosking as a "brilliant guy" and said his fiancee was "speechless" when he emerged with the ring. "Now she's never taking it off," he joked.
