Workers Search Dupont Circle Escalator for $12K Heirloom

Woman dropped ring on Metro escalator

Escalators stopping at the Dupont Circle Metro Station don’t come as much of a surprise anymore. But tonight’s reason might.

Metro workers shut down an escalator at the busy station to hunt for a lost treasure. Alaina Van Horn lost a 100-year-old engagement ring worth about $12,000 over the weekend.

“I was devastated,” she said.

The diamond and sapphire ring is under the foot of the escalator.

“I took off my left glove,” she said. “I didn’t hear anything. My mom turned around and said, ‘You dropped something.’ And then I heard ping, ping. We both got close, seeing what it was, and we both saw the last piece of white gold as it went down.”

She’d worn the ring for 15 years. It had been passed down in her family beginning in the early 1900s.

“I just sat down on a bench in there, was just hysterically crying,” Van Horn said.

She called Metro to ask for help getting it back. Workers said it’s easier to find a needle in a haystack than it is to find this ring.

“They haven’t found it, yet,” she said Tuesday night. “I’ll accept that maybe it’s gone after the search is complete.”

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