Diamond in someone else's rough...

PHOENIX - So you've just flushed your $70,000 diamond engagement ring down the toilet: who are you going to call.

Well, first the city, but if that doesn't work try a commercial plumber.

Just ask Allison Berry, whose expensive, seven-carat wedding ring slipped from her hand just as she was flushing the toilet in the restroom of the Black Bear Diner in Phoenix, on Jan. 14.

Restaurant shift manager Elena Castela says city workers opened a pipe outside the restaurant and tried to flush the ring into the open.

When that didn't work, the city called a local office of Mr. Rooter, a plumbing services franchise.

"This is going to be like dredging for a treasure chest in the ocean," Mike Roberts, general manager of Mr. Rooter, said at the time.

Roberts guided a tiny video camera into the pipe with an infrared light attached. He eventually spotted the ring less than two metres over from where it was flushed.

Then it took 90 minutes of jackhammering and pipe removal before Roberts and a technician could recover the ring, eight hours after it fell in the toilet.

"They always say diamonds are a girl's best friend. In this case, a plumber is a girl's best friend," Roberts said. "She was just so excited, she had tears in her eyes. She gave us a hug and said 'Thank you so much."'

The Mr. Rooter bill came to $5,200 and the city's bill was $1,000.

Berry, of Eureka, Calif., and her husband also tipped Roberts and the technician $400 each and gave $200 to a diner employee for staying late.