There is a certain joy or triumph when you find what you've mistakenly lost, but for Pat Paraska of Center Township, finding her lost wedding ring was nothing short of a miracle.

The sight of her wedding ring slipping off of her finger in the chilly water of Conneaut Lake made her heart sink.

"We were about 100 or 200 yards off shore and about three or four docks down from ours while I was trying to teach my niece to water ski," said Paraska, who had been in the cool water for awhile.

"I guess the coldness made my fingers shrink. When I saw it slip off into the dark water and disappear, I thought it was gone for good," she said.

Paraska even joked about offering a reward for it, knowing that it had sunk to the bottom of the deep lake.

"It had my initials and our wedding date on it," she said.

Three years later, an amazing discovery took place on their dock.

"My niece looked down into the water at the end of our dock and saw something shining. She knew immediately it was my lost ring," said Paraska, who remembered the promised reward needs to be issued.

"It was a miracle; I thought for sure I'd never see it again. It was a small ring in a very big lake," she said. But now it is back on her finger where it belongs and a niece still awaits her unclaimed reward.