Neal and Colleen Baum with one of her two diamond tennis bracelets that were accidentally thrown out at their home in Edmonds and recovered from five tons of trash. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)

Neal and Colleen Baum with one of her two diamond tennis bracelets that were accidentally thrown out at their home in Edmonds and recovered from five tons of trash. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)

A dig through 5 tons of trash yields a gem

Workers came to the rescue of an Edmonds woman who tossed diamond bracelets from her hubby of 57 years.

EDMONDS — Her husband gave her two diamond bracelets.

And she threw them in the trash.

What’s up with that?

Colleen Baum put the diamond tennis bracelets on the kitchen counter while packing for a 10-day getaway with Neal for their 57th wedding anniversary on Aug. 22.

The slender chain bracelets, gifts from Neal in recent years, were amid papers she tossed in a quick cleaning sweep before heading out to a grandson’s dinner party that evening.

“To be kind, she is fastidious,” Neal said. “She didn’t want to leave the house with stuff on the counter.”

The next morning, Colleen awoke with a bad feeling about her bracelets. “In the back of my head I realized, ‘I probably threw them in the garbage,’” she said.

The trash truck was long gone when she bounded out of bed in dread. Neal was supposed to play golf with some buddies but had overslept, so he was there to assist.

Colleen called Sound Disposal. Linda Nicholson, office manager, took her frantic call.

“I felt so bad for her. She was crying,” Nicholson said. “She said, ‘It’s in a white Costco bag.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh-my-God, everybody’s garbage is in a white Costco bag,’ and I didn’t want to say that to her. I was like, ‘Oh, boy.’”

One of Colleen Baum’s diamond tennis bracelets that was found after sorting through five tons of trash at the Snohomish County Southwest Recycling Transfer Station. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)

One of Colleen Baum’s diamond tennis bracelets that was found after sorting through five tons of trash at the Snohomish County Southwest Recycling Transfer Station. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)

Nicholson notified her husband, Gene, who was driving the garbage truck that was pretty full. Bags are compacted at pickup.

“Nobody was really confident we were going to find it,” she said. “That’s a lot of trash and two little diamond bracelets.”

He took the load to the Snohomish County Southwest Recycling & Transfer Station in Mountlake Terrace. The county’s solid waste operations supervisor Steve McLean organized the search party with workers Scott Barton and Jack Lockhart.

They rooted through five tons of rubbish.

“The mission was to find the bracelets in a white trash bag like 80% of what we receive,” county public works spokesperson Julie Kuntz said.

Neal went inside while Colleen waited anxiously in the car.

“They dumped everything out on this big concrete floor. They got their gloves on and just started wading through it, looking through bag after bag,” Neal said.

“I never expected somebody to stop everything and do that. I can’t believe people even do this stuff anymore. They went out of their way wading through waist-high trash trying to find these bracelets.”

Neal watched as they scoured five tons of smelly wrappers, sticky cans and dirty diapers.

“It was a 30-foot-long line of trash, about 4 or 5 feet deep,” he said. “I thought, ‘This is impossible they’ll never find it.’”

The search lasted 40 minutes until finding diamonds in the rough.

Neal Baum with Solid Waste maintenance technician Jack Lockhart after the diamond bracelets were found in the trash. (Contributed photo)

Neal Baum with Solid Waste maintenance technician Jack Lockhart after the diamond bracelets were found in the trash. (Contributed photo)

“I’ll be darned if they didn’t come up with it,” Neal said. “It was a needle in a haystack thing.”

The bracelets had fallen out of the bags and were buried under the mound of debris.

It was a moment of elation for all involved. Colleen cried for the second time that day.

Nicholson said a week later a woman called Sound Disposal saying her wallet was in a recycle bin that was picked up. That entailed workers digging through trash at the recycling center in Woodinville. The driver even delivered the wallet to the customer’s house.

“We’re two-for-two,” Nicholson said.

Actually, three-for-three in the county.

Last December, at the county’s Cathcart Way Operations Center in Snohomish, workers retrieved a man’s wedding ring from two tons of recyclables.

The gold band had slipped off Kevin Klein’s finger when he’d taken a load to the Sultan Drop Box. His dumpster dive through cardboard, paper and stray garbage was to no avail so he notified the pros, who dug through the mess at the operations center.

“I thought for sure there was no way we were going to find it,” Klein told The Herald at the time.

Most items reported lost are not found, county spokesperson Kuntz said.

In the case of the diamond bracelets, the value was more sentimental than financial.

“It’s not the cost. It was that Neal had given them to me,” Colleen said.

(They were insured, Neal said.)

It has been a busy year for the couple. Their company Vaxpoint, which does business as Seattle Visiting Nurse Association, has done over 120,000 COVID vaccinations in Snohomish and King counties.

The Baums had a break before the next wave of shots, including those for flu.

“We were packing to head down the coast, trying to take it easy,” Neal said.

The trip coincided with their anniversary. Both were 20 when married 57 years ago.

They met when they were 17.

Love at first sight?

“She says it was,” he said.

They have two children and four grandchildren.

The diamond bracelets venture is another chapter in their history.

“It all ended well,” Neal said. “Even if it was a little stinky.”

Andrea Brown: abrown@heraldnet.com; 425-339-3443. Twitter @reporterbrown

Fig update

A crop of readers responded to the Aug. 24 What’s Up column about Wally Harper’s fig tree. Who knew there were so many fig lovers out there? Harper ran out of figs to give away.

It also led to some setting the record straight about fig wasps. Yeah, I should have known it sounded too good to be true to include wasp sex in a story. As four experts pointed out, the fig wasps who mate in figs and leave body parts behind are not in this part of the world. So when you bite into a local fig you can assure yourself that you are eating a wasp-free fruit.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Local News

A firefighter stands in silence before a panel bearing the names of L. John Regelbrugge and Kris Regelbrugge during the ten-year remembrance of the Oso landslide on Friday, March 22, 2024, at the Oso Landslide Memorial in Oso, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
‘Flood of emotions’ as Oso Landslide Memorial opens on 10th anniversary

Friends, family and first responders held a moment of silence at 10:37 a.m. at the new 2-acre memorial off Highway 530.

Julie Petersen poses for a photo with images of her sister Christina Jefferds and Jefferds’ grand daughter Sanoah Violet Huestis next to a memorial for Sanoah at her home on March 20, 2024 in Arlington, Washington. Peterson wears her sister’s favorite color and one of her bangles. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
‘It just all came down’: An oral history of the Oso mudslide

Ten years later, The Daily Herald spoke with dozens of people — first responders, family, survivors — touched by the deadliest slide in U.S. history.

Victims of the Oso mudslide on March 22, 2014. (Courtesy photos)
Remembering the 43 lives lost in the Oso mudslide

The slide wiped out a neighborhood along Highway 530 in 2014. “Even though you feel like you’re alone in your grief, you’re really not.”

Director Lucia Schmit, right, and Deputy Director Dara Salmon inside the Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management on Friday, March 8, 2024, in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
How Oso slide changed local emergency response ‘on virtually every level’

“In a decade, we have just really, really advanced,” through hard-earned lessons applied to the pandemic, floods and opioids.

Ron and Gail Thompson at their home on Monday, March 4, 2024 in Oso, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
In shadow of scarred Oso hillside, mudslide’s wounds still feel fresh

Locals reflected on living with grief and finding meaning in the wake of a catastrophe “nothing like you can ever imagine” in 2014.

Rep. Suzan DelBene, left, introduces Xichitl Torres Small, center, Undersecretary for Rural Development with the U.S. Department of Agriculture during a talk at Thomas Family Farms on Monday, April 3, 2023, in Snohomish, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Under new federal program, Washingtonians can file taxes for free

At a press conference Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene called the Direct File program safe, easy and secure.

Former Snohomish County sheriff’s deputy Jeremie Zeller appears in court for sentencing on multiple counts of misdemeanor theft Wednesday, March 27, 2024, at Snohomish County Superior Court in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Ex-sheriff’s deputy sentenced to 1 week of jail time for hardware theft

Jeremie Zeller, 47, stole merchandise from Home Depot in south Everett, where he worked overtime as a security guard.

Everett
11 months later, Lake Stevens man charged in fatal Casino Road shooting

Malik Fulson is accused of shooting Joseph Haderlie to death in the parking lot at the Crystal Springs Apartments last April.

T.J. Peters testifies during the murder trial of Alan Dean at the Snohomish County Courthouse on Tuesday, March 26, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Bothell cold case trial now in jury’s hands

In court this week, the ex-boyfriend of Melissa Lee denied any role in her death. The defendant, Alan Dean, didn’t testify.

A speed camera facing west along 220th Street Southwest on Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023 in Edmonds, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
New Washington law will allow traffic cams on more city, county roads

The move, led by a Snohomish County Democrat, comes as roadway deaths in the state have hit historic highs.

Mrs. Hildenbrand runs through a spelling exercise with her first grade class on the classroom’s Boxlight interactive display board funded by a pervious tech levy on Tuesday, March 19, 2024 in Marysville, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Lakewood School District’s new levy pitch: This time, it won’t raise taxes

After two levies failed, the district went back to the drawing board, with one levy that would increase taxes and another that would not.

Alex Hanson looks over sections of the Herald and sets the ink on Wednesday, March 30, 2022 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Black Press, publisher of Everett’s Daily Herald, is sold

The new owners include two Canadian private investment firms and a media company based in the southern United States.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.