The Air Milford chief pilot said he was walking from his office down to the boat terminal in Milford Sound about a week ago when he came across an Indian family visiting from Melbourne.
"I was walking down to pick my passengers up for a flight back to Queenstown, and I saw this family was just scurrying around in the bushes at the side of the path.
"I was like, ‘this is really strange’. So I just asked them straight up, and said, ‘what’s happened, guys?’
"And they said they’d lost a wedding ring. They were pretty upset.
"The ring has sentimental value, of course, and a history."
They said it was really important because they were celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary there.
"I had five minutes until my boat arrived, so I gave them some help.
"We got down on hands and knees and we were all scavenging through the bush.
"I was pretty confident that we’d find this ring because the search area was a very small, pretty contained area just off the walking track.
"But once you started looking beneath the scrub there, you’d see a whole lot of these beech leaves that were golden coloured as well.
"So I was like, ‘this is not going to be as easy as I thought’."
Unfortunately, they were unable to find the ring and gave up.
Mr Sproull said he gave them his business card and asked them to call him, in case it was found by someone else and handed in to the lost and found at the boat terminal.
"The next day, I was really wishing I had a metal detector because I’d be able to pick this thing out straight away if it was still there."
In between jobs, he decided to "have another nosy" in the spot where the ring went missing.
"And so I literally kneeled down and peeled back the first fern, and right there, sitting proud half in the dirt and half shining at me, was the ring.
"I felt like Frodo Baggins in Lord of the Rings."
But the down side was he had not heard from the family, and he did not have any contact details for them.
"I’ve got nothing."
So he has put messages up on social media in the hope that six degrees of separation will help find the family, so he can return the ring.
He called on the family to get in touch as soon as possible.
