The newly engaged couple whose tale of losing their engagement ring down a Times Square utility grate went viral has been reunited with the sparkler – and the big-hearted NYPD cops who found the piece of jewelry.
The emotional moment happened on the “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” in an episode set to air Thursday afternoon.
British couple Daniella Anthony and John Drennan were overcome with emotion when talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres surprised the pair by bringing out NYPD Emergency Services Unit detectives Joe Bucchignano and Brian Glacken, according to a clip released in advance of the show.
“Oh my God!” Anthony shouted when she saw the officers walk out onto the show as Drennan quickly hugged both cops, thanking them, followed by Anthony.
Seconds later, Bucchignano told the couple, “I think you guys dropped something,” before handing over the ring that got lost last month and turned the couple’s happy day into a nightmare.
A “shaking” Drenann then proposed to Anthony for the second time — and she again said “yes” as she cried “happy tears.”
The officers then gifted the couple ring adjusters to prevent them from another mishap.
“Eight dollars goes a long way these days. Here’s some ring adjusters. Please don’t drop it again,” Bucchignano told the couple.
On Nov. 30, Drennan had proposed to Anthony, his girlfriend of 10 years, in Central Park during a trip to New York City. But roughly seven hours later, the ring slipped off Anthony’s finger at the Crossroads of The World and fell eight feet down into a sidewalk grate.
“I went to grab Daniella’s hand just to look at the ring, and yeah it slipped right off,” Drennan recalled, prompting DeGeneres to say: “So you did it. You knocked it off.”
“Yeah, it was my fault, yeah,” Drennan said laughing.
Anthony said she had been reluctant to wear the ring after the proposal.
“John, it’s a little bit big. I really don’t know if I want to wear the ring,” she recalled saying.
Drennan said he replied: “Daniella, we just got engaged. Ten years we been together. Ten years you waited on this ring. Come on, it’s staying on your finger.”
He then remembered the moment the ring fell, saying: “It slips off like in slow motion. It bounces once, bounces twice and right into that grate.”
He said Anthony was “heartbroken,” adding, “I never want to see Daniella that upset again in my life.”
“It’s every girl’s worst nightmare,” Anthony said.
Their evening went from “joy and happiness to absolute devastation,” Drennan added.
The couple then hailed the officers, who opened the grate and tried for nearly two hours to retrieve the ring with no luck.
But unbeknownst to the couple at the time, Bucchignano and Glacken went back the next day and miraculously wound up finding the ring.
The NYPD then blasted the tale out on social media in an attempt to track the couple down to return the jewelry to them.
The soon-to-be married duo only learned the ring had been found when a friend alerted them of the online post after they arrived back home in the UK.
“We were like, ‘Oh my God, Daniella, they found our ring, they found our ring,’” Drennan said.
“I don’t know any police department in the world where a police department or two police officers would have went back the next day,” he added.
During the segment, DeGeneres also gifted the couple a check for $10,000 to put towards their June 2020 wedding.