Long Island Rail Road ticket clerk Nicholas Appel knew something was amiss when he witnessed a commuter at Grand Central Station “panicked, stressed and on the verge of tears" as she rifled through her bag.

When he asked if he could help, the woman explained that she lost her engagement ring during her 30-minute commute to Manhattan from the outer borough of Queens.

"My first move was to ask what was going on and that's when she said she lost the engagement ring, and then from there on out, we were searching the whole train car," Appel told WABC-TV.

When the search proved fruitless, Appel advised the woman to file a police report with the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA).

MTA officers learned that the woman's trip into the city wasn't a direct one. She had started her commute at the Queen's Village Station (gold line, shown below), but transferred 10 minutes later to a Grand Central-bound train at Jamaica Station.

"She had to transfer at Jamaica. On the way, she took off her ring to put lotion on her hands and that's when I went 'Ah,'" Officer Nyndak told WABC-TV.

While she boarded the connecting train headed for Grand Central Station in Manhattan, her ring remained on the original train, bound for Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn.

MTA Sergeant Nyndak was able to identify the number of the first train and learned that it was parked at the VD Yard in Brooklyn, awaiting its scheduled trip back to Long Island.

The sergeant alerted Officer Tongzon, who was on duty at the train yard.

"As I was walking towards the last train car, towards the end of the train car, I happened to look on the right and I saw something that was shining. It was glistening, and it was a big ring," he said.

The mystery of the missing engagement was solved in a matter of hours.

Officer Nyndak described the woman's reaction when he called her with the good news.

"So, she picks up and the first thing I hear over the phone is, 'Did you find it? Did you find it?'" Nyndak recalled. “She was obviously ecstatic and we were happy that we found it."

See the ABC news segment here…

Credits: Screen captures via abc7ny.com. Original map by User:NE2 with later modifications by users listed below, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.