A New Jersey rail passenger's routine commute took a stressful turn when her wedding ring was accidentally flushed down a train toilet, but quick action by NJ Transit maintenance crews led to its successful recovery.

On July 7, Julie Angelicola was traveling on a North Jersey Coast Line train when she used the restroom. After washing her hands, she discovered the sink was out of water and used tissues to dry them. In the process, her wedding band came off, and she inadvertently tossed the tissues, along with the ring, into the toilet and flushed.

"I have a long ride ahead of me, and I just did not realize that I took off my wedding band, in the midst of that, threw everything in the toilet, flushed the toilet," Angelicola told NJ.com. She soon realized the ring was missing.

After checking her home with her husband, Stephen, and finding no trace of the ring, Angelicola alerted train conductors. They took down her information and advised her to file a lost and found report at Penn Station, but acknowledged the low probability of recovery.

Understanding that train toilets empty into 50-gallon holding tanks, NJ Transit maintenance employees swiftly acted to isolate the specific rail car. They removed it from the train and transported it to the Meadowlands Maintenance Complex before further use could potentially complicate the recovery.

"And the quicker we do this, the better," said David DeGennaro, general superintendent of equipment at NJ Transit’s Meadowlands Maintenance Complex. "Because you’re talking about a toilet tank, the longer the bathroom gets used, the worse it’s gonna get."

At the maintenance complex, workers removed the tank. "It was sitting there on top, just staring at you," Eric Sanders, the complex’s service and inspection manager, told NJ.com. "We knew that we had to get that train right away in order to get the ring."

Angelicola received a call from an NJ Transit representative shortly before she was scheduled to leave for vacation. To her astonishment, the representative informed her that the ring had been found.

"I said something to the effect of, ‘I appreciate the courtesy call, thanks for following up’ and he’s like, ‘oh no, I’m calling because we found it,’" she recalled. "And I could not believe that."

She later encountered one of the conductors who had initially assisted her. "Believe it or not I’m going to pick it up," she told him. He then excitedly called to his coworkers.

The ring, after being disinfected, was returned to Angelicola at Penn Station on a Monday.