Cynthia Dominick, director of operations development at Tidelands Health, arrived early to the community COVID-19 testing event Friday at Coastal Carolina University eager to once again jump in wherever needed and make a difference.
She stood by the large, white testing tents assessing the setup, unaware that she’d be having an impact that goes way beyond testing. When she reached down to pick up the handy cooler she always brings with her to the testing events, something unusual on the pavement caught her eye.
“I bent down to pick it up and realized it was a ring – a wedding ring,” Dominick says.
Well, that’s odd. Only a couple of Tidelands Health team members had arrived. This ring must belong to the team that put up the tent the previous day, she thought. The hunt was on.
Investigation
She looked closely at the ring for clues, and – with the help of a teammate’s reading glasses – deciphered from the engraving inside the men’s titanium band that she was looking for a man named Cory. She called and emailed EventWorks, which assembles the tents.
“It was like lickety-split – he called me and was here,” Dominick says.
Cory Shaw, director of operations at EventWorks, was ecstatic that his wedding ring had been found.
In less than 30 minutes, Cory Shaw, director of operations at EventWorks, had shown up at the testing event at Coastal Carolina University to be reunited with the ring, which he had lost a week earlier taking down the testing tents from the Tidelands Health event at Myrtle Beach Pelicans Stadium. The ring represents 10 years of marriage to his bride, Melissa.
'Overjoyed'
A week ago, after realizing the loose-fitting ring had slipped off his finger while he was working, he walked every inch of the massive baseball stadium parking lot looking for it. He was hoping – but definitely not certain – that the ring would appear the next time the tents came out.
Seven days and more than a dozen miles later, the ring appeared.
“I had a very good feeling it would turn up today,” Shaw says, the ring back on his left hand where it belongs. “I was just overjoyed when I got the call – so happy.”
Next COVID-19 testing event
Receive a free COVID-19 test on Saturday, Aug. 1, at a drive-through event at Myrtle Beach Pelicans Stadium. No referral is required – you can simply drive up to be tested. Learn more by clicking here.
It made Dominick feel pretty good, too. When she started her day, she knew her work would be helping those in the community get COVID-19 tests at the event – that’s why she’s stepped up to work nine of the 10 testing events. She never imagined she would also have this sort of personal impact.
“It just made me feel really good when he called. I just thought how it must feel to have lost your wedding ring – to you and your spouse,” Dominick says. “To lose your wedding ring while supporting your work is just another stressor.
“I assumed he probably thought he’d never see it again, and lo and behold there it was. I found it.”
