COURTESY PHOTO | Mary Dubitsky shows off her rings at Crescent Beach last Saturday.

A woman who lost both her wedding and engagement rings at Crescent Beach on August 31 has both of them back and police are still holding another lost ring that was found on North Ferry a couple of weeks ago.

Mary Dubitsky and her husband Warren were married at Our Lady of the Isle Church on July 30, 2011, celebrating with a reception at Gardiner’s Bay Country Club. They returned to Shelter Island Labor Day weekend this year to visit Ms. Dubitsky’s parents, James and Kathleen Lynch. Ms. Dubitsky jammed her fingers playing football on Crescent Beach and while shaking her hands must have lost both her wedding and engagement rings.

Heartbroken, she believed she’d never see them again.

She and her husband were in law school at Notre Dame when they got engaged and he spent “all the money he had” on that engagement ring, his wife said. She estimated the value of the wedding and engagement rings at about $10,000.

Her husband was very sweet about the loss, she said, but she was “devastated.” And her mother worried that she might associate Shelter Island with the loss and never want to come back here.

The day after the loss, 14-year-old Pierce Senken was in the water just off the beach and found the wedding ring on the bottom and turned it into police. They notified Ms. Dubitsky, who had filed a police report that morning. She was relieved to get that ring back and suddenly had hopes that she just might get lucky enough to have the engagement ring returned.

Enter Tim Wilson of Hampton Bays. As a result of Ms. Dubitsky’s efforts to locate someone with a metal detector, he was recommended to her as someone who might be of help. Last Saturday, September 8, Mr. Wilson came over and began the search.

“It was further out than I had expected,” Mr. Wilson said, basing his starting point where Ms. Dubitsky said the wedding band had been found. Mr. Wilson ended up in water chest deep and the sounds he was getting from his metal detector had become more and more faint, leading him to believe that he wasn’t going to succeed. But just then, he heard a slight sound. He dug down about 8 inches into the bottom and retrieved the ring. Because tidal action seemed to draw the ring further out off the beach and deeper into the bottom, it might have been irretrievable after another day, Mr. Wilson said.

“There’s a little luck in it,” he said about what has become a hobby for him.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Ms. Dubitsky said about her fortune in getting both rings back. “Thank God I got in touch with this wonderful guy,” she said.

As for that ring found on North Ferry by Rex Miller, 5, last month and estimated to be worth about $1,000, police are still waiting to see if someone will claim it. If not, it will be turned over to young Mr. Miller. Should that happen, his parents, John and Emily Miller, promise it will be used to help pay for their son’s future needs.