It’s funny how life works out sometimes — how people often are in the right spot, at the right moment.
Danielle Wakefield, the assistant coach for the Nunaka Valley Little League softball team from Anchorage, was in Ketchikan for the Junior Division state softball tournament last week. And it was shortly after her plane landed on July 15 at the Ketchikan airport that she realized the diamond from her ring was missing.
The diamond has special meaning, as it’s the only thing Wakefield has from her late father. “I had nothing else from him,” she said.
“I got off the plane and went to the ferry, and by the time I had gotten off the ferry, I felt my ring — and my diamond was gone,” she said. “I couldn’t go back, so I basically left and came (to the softball field).”
She said to a friend, “I lost my diamond. How am I going to tell my mom?”
Her mom was watching the game’s livestream feed Facebook Live, and soon called Wakefield. “My mom called me and said, ‘You lost your diamond,’ right away. It was weird.”
Moms have a knack for being all-knowing, and giving advice.
“She said post on Facebook, so I posted on Facebook,” Wakefield said.
The post spread rapidly.
“Ketchikan shared it everywhere in their community pages,” Wakefield said. “I was getting messages from people in the city, (saying) call the borough; here are phone numbers. People were really on top of this.”
The next day, Wakefield received a message from someone who thought she had found the diamond.
It was Destiny Madewell, a lead security officer at the airport.
Madewell had picked up the shiny rock before it was vacuumed up in the baggage claim area.
“I had seen a post that a friend had shared with me on Facebook regarding (Wakefield) losing her diamond out of her ring,” Madewell said. “It was after she had arrived (on Alaska Airlines flight) 64, the night before. I just decided — I don’t normally do this — but I shared the (post) on Facebook with some of my airport friends, hoping, you know, like a needle in a haystack, (maybe) they would find it.”
That haystack happened to be in an airport that sees an average of 700 people a day during the summer months, according to Transportation Security Manager Jeremiah Tucker.
Even after all of that foot traffic — and more than 24 hours later — Wakefield’s diamond lay there on the floor.
“I was sent downstairs at the end of the day to doublecheck, and make sure things were closed in our baggage area,” Madewell said. “As I was leaving and walking through the airport baggage claim area, something shiny on the floor caught my eye. I was going to keep walking, but decided to look at it closer, and I picked it up and it turned out to be the diamond.”
Madewell had found that “needle in a haystack.”
She took it to her supervisor, Jodi Muzzana, to doublecheck whether it matched Wakefield’s original Facebook post, and then sent Wakefield a message.
“I looked at my phone in the middle of a game, which I’m not supposed to do,” Wakefield said, “and (Madewell) said, ‘Is this yours?’
“I said, ‘It looks like mine, but I don’t know until I try to put it back in my ring,’” Wakefield continued. “She said, ‘Well, I’m going to be off the ferry at 8:30 p.m. — this is like 8:10 p.m. (on July 16) — so I was like, ‘I’m leaving.’”
Of course, the diamond fit.
“She was beyond joy,” Madewell said of Wakefield’s reaction. “Very excited and happy. I don’t think she had much hope that it was going to be found.”
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