Our Stories: Would You Say “I Do” to Helping a Lovesick Tourist?
Chasom Wilson was psyched. The South Carolina man had the perfect ring and was ready to propose to his true love with the bright lights of Times Square as his backdrop. Then, just as he bent down on one knee and opened the box…
Poof!
The ring popped out and bounced away. Down, down, down, went the ring, deep into a sidewalk grate below his feet.
Enter Elvimar (Elvi) Rivas and Bertilio Caceres of Con Edison’s Steam Operations.
The pair, who were doing safety patrols on this rainy Saturday night in March, drove by and noticed a big commotion. At the suggestion of onlookers, Wilson, who was visiting New York City for the first time with his girlfriend, Kayla Pressley, flagged down Rivas and Caceres’ Con Edison truck.
“We took out a flashlight and we started looking down because we thought maybe it fell in one of our electric manholes and maybe we could call number 9 (the Con Edison group that dispatches emergency crews),” recalled Caceres, senior engineering designer.
But upon inspection, the Steam duo realized the sidewalk grate wasn’t a Con Edison structure. Rather, the vent—just a few feet from the red bleachers, aka the TDF/TKTS steps in Times Square—is an MTA property.
“We could see the ring, but it was super deep,” said Caceres.
The South Carolina couple, a truck driver and a nurse, had approached nearby MTA personnel for help and went to a local police precinct, but they were told to call 311 instead.
“And he was like, ‘No, no, I can't do that. I'm leaving tomorrow,’” said Caceres.
Rivas and Caceres called 311 on the tourists’ behalf, but they felt compelled to do more.
“The whole weekend I kept thinking about this man's face and this ring,” recalled Rivas, senior analyst. “He was heartbroken.”
The next Monday, Rivas and Caceres approached John Masiello in Con Edison’s Public Improvement, the department that typically works closely with New York City on projects, and Kiara Lebron in Con Edison’s Energy Services, which helps customers navigate through the process of requesting new or additional electric or gas supply.
From left to right: Elvimar Rivas, Bertilio Caceres, Peter Knoblauch, Kiara Lebron, and John Masiello, made it their mission to help a couple from North Carolina after their engagement ring bounced into a NYC subway grate.
Masiello reached out to a contact. At the same time, Lebron spoke to her colleague, Peter Knoblauch in Energy Services, the customer project manager who works directly with the MTA’s New York City Transit, which runs the subway system.
“I knew who to reach out to. I speak to him almost daily,” said Knoblauch. His contact was Ernesto Drepaul, assistant chief officer at Transit’s Operations Control Center.
A long email thread started with LeBron, Caceres, Rivas, and Knoblauch sharing info and coordinating with Drepaul, who got to work finding the MTA crew with the right skill set to retrieve the ring which had fallen into a vent shaft.
“The vent is very deep and they’re suggesting a tripod and harness team along with barricading the area,” wrote Drepaul.
An MTA Infrastructure Crew arrived at the scene, but since Times Square is so busy, they waited until the overnight shift so they could shut down the area to safely access the princess-cut diamond ring. It had landed on a ledge about 20 feet below the sidewalk vent, which was filled with trash. The MTA crew was able to retrieve the ring and mail it back to the couple who had returned home from their New York City trip.
“We retrieve a lot of dropped property for customers throughout the system, but when I heard this was someone proposing, I know if I was that person, I would be very grateful for help,” said Drepaul.
LeBron said she felt good making the connection.
“Nine times out of 10, we don't have control over these things. This is one of those stories that was literally six different people who just did the right thing at the same time,” she said.
Pressley, who officially accepted her beau’s proposal and the recovered ring in early May on a mountaintop, said she and Wilson are extremely grateful to the entire team who helped get their engagement ring back.
“All these guys kept checking in,” said Wilson, who offered Caceres cash as a thank-you. Of course, the Con Edison employee refused the reward, as per company policy. “He was a really, really huge help. He was like, as long as you have a great marriage then that’s all I really care about.”