A proposal that went south above the ski slopes had a happy ending, thanks to a determined snowmaking supervisor and his trusty metal detector.
Newly engaged Trevor Van Camp popped the question to his girlfriend Danielle Jenkins along the snowy SkyBridge at Boyne Mountain in Northern Michigan, beneath a twinkling canopy of Christmas lights, only to drop the ring through the grate after he dropped to his knee.
The ski and golf resort confirmed the mishap turned merriment to ABC News, and said a proposal "at 118 feet above the ground comes with risks."
Van Camp said he had planned to record the moment he asked Jenkins to marry him -- she said yes -- but instead, he captured the engagement ring tumbling down to the snow beneath.
"I was high up. I was terrified for my life. I'm about to ask this woman to marry me," he recounted, speaking with ABC News. "I was in complete shock."
Van Camp said he was in disbelief after dropping the ring and thought, "I just ruined her proposal."
"Just a whole list of things was going through my head," he added, "[including] 'I'm never gonna find this ring.'"
In a previous statement to Boyne Mountain shared with ABC News, Van Camp said the couple "panicked for a minute and then said, 'We need to find it.'"
The couple then spent two and a half hours searching the area underneath the SkyBridge with metal detectors from night shift snowmaking supervisor Pat Harper.
Just after 10 p.m., as the pair were preparing to give up, Harper picked up a signal and found the ring in a handful of snow.
"Right there, sticking out of the edge, was a silver round edge -- and I thought, 'No way I just found that.' And I picked it up, and sure enough, there was their engagement ring," Harper told ABC News.
Van Camp gave big props to Harper for saving the day and said he was "relieved, big time."
For her part, Jenkins said the ring "was everything I could have imagined."
"I've had a lot of people ask me if [the dropped ring] ruined the proposal, and it didn't," she added. "It made the proposal."
The ring is now securely on Jenkins' finger, and the couple said they plan to return to Boyne Mountain to complete their walk across the bridge.
Editor's note: This article was updated to include additional comments from Trevor Van Camp, Danielle Jenkins and Pat Harper.
