Good Sorts: Queenstown helicopter pilot scales mountain to find newlyweds' lost wedding ring

May 9, 2021

Luke McEwan gave his word to a newly married couple and climbed a mountain to make it happen.

How often in life have you made a promise that deep down you thought you couldn't keep?

Last July, the chances were high that Queenstown helicopter pilot Luke McEwan had bit off more than he could chew in the promise department. 

Dunedin couple Thea and Nick were his helicopter passengers, married in an intimate Queenstown wedding high up on the hills above Skippers Canyon.

It was meant to be one of their happiest days until things took a turn. They lost the ring, which saw Luke making a promise he wasn't sure he could keep.

“I didn’t think they would find it… it was a small ring on top of a mountain,” said Luke. 

“I said I will come back up when snow was gone and find it… I was always going to come back.”

It was Nick’s Grandmother’s ring, lost in the snow that blanketed the Southern Alps.

“When I noticed it, I was like Nick… the ring. There was a bit of panic. I was having fun in the snow and I think I fell in,” said Thea.

Luke ventured out on his day off, and climbed to the top of Vanguard Peak in search for the lost wedding ring, taking a medal detector along with him.

“I started wondering whether I was actually going to run in to it or not… probably another five minutes and I was going to have to make a track," said Luke.

That is until he picked up a faint reading on his detector and started to dig around. And he found it.

“I’m very grateful this has come back to us, to our family, so hopefully when I have a daughter in the future I can pass it on,” said Thea.

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