7’s Dannielle Garcia meets with hobbyist who found her lost class ring at Miami Beach with metal detector - WSVN 7News | Miami News, Weather, Sports
(WSVN) – You know when you go to the beach, sometimes you see someone with a metal detector combing through the sand? In tonight’s 7 Spotlight, we talk to a man who went sifting through the sand and became a hero to one of our own.
7’s Dannielle Garcia is here to tell her own story.
Yatir Nitzany: “So you have to go through about 500 bottle caps to find a gold ring, for example.”
Yatir Nitzany never thought of metal detecting as a job. He’s an author and happens to search for treasure on the side.
Yatir Nitzany: “About four years since COVID. I started when everybody was, you know, at home, bored, so I decided I would take up this hobby, which doesn’t require, you know, social distancing and all that other stuff.”
Yatir doesn’t just stay on the sand; he actually goes into the water for his searches.
Yatir Nitzany: “It’s quiet. Very quiet on here, people, you know, screaming, you know, my own little world. I have a few friends that also do it, but they won’t go underwater because they said they don’t want to see what’s underneath, but it’s so fun. I think even if I saw bull shark, I’ll still be in there the next day.”
Since he started taking the plunge, Yatir has found all kinds of things in the waters off the South Florida coast, including something very important to me.
Dannielle Garcia: “Oh, I’m so happy to finally meet you.”
My story is like so many others. I went into the ocean wearing my gold Loyola University of New Orleans class ring, and that wasn’t a great idea, I quickly learned, because when I came out of the ocean, it was gone.
Yatir Nitzany: “So, when I found your ring, I contacted you on Instagram. And again, I always try to be as vague as possible, because you never know who you’re speaking to, so I said, ‘Did you lose something in Miami Beach with your name on it?’ And then you immediately responded and said, ‘It was a ring.’”
The ring is my connection to a city that I love and where I went to school, in part because of my father.
It was his favorite place. He passed in 2019, and the ring became my good luck charm.
I touch it before almost every live report. I had my full name engraved on the inside, which is how Yatir, luckily, was able to find me.
Yatir Nitzany: “Well, you’re the first person I ever reunited with their item because your name was in it.”
Dannielle Garcia: “So, I mean, I’ve lost my ring on a Saturday, and I think four days later you contacted me, which you said is pretty lucky.”
Yatir Nitzany: “When you lose something in the water, because the gold is so heavy, it starts sinking. So if we waited a couple of weeks, my machine would probably not have been able to detect it.”
Yatir would love to be able to reunite everyone with their lost treasures. But most of the time, he’s not that lucky.
Yatir Nitzany: “If I post it, you know, on Facebook, everyone will start contacting me and lying to me. It’s theirs. So, you know, a lot of stuff, I hold on to it.”
But of all the items he has found, he does have one he would desperately like to reunite with its owner: a wedding band with the name Marian and the date 02-09-05.
Yatir Nitzany: “It’ll feel amazing, because they probably feel really bad that they lost it. So, you know, even if they get a new one, it still won’t be the same because of sentimental, right?”
And for this very reason, when he is at the beach, he tries to warn people to keep their treasures out of the water.
Yatir Nitzany: “One time I was at the beach without a metal detector, and I was talking to these two, couple that just got engaged. I said, ‘Make sure you don’t go in the water with it.’ She went like this, yanked it. It flew out of her hand and went inside the water. I came back there three days in a row to look for it. I couldn’t find it.”
Which is why I count myself among the lucky ones, because Yatir Nitzany was nearby, metal detector in hand.
Dannielle Garcia, 7News.
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