Boyfriend proposes moments after finding lost engagement ring in Texas tornado debris
Nothing could stop this Texas couple’s engagement — not even a tornado and a lost ring, video shows.
A tornado swept through Lamar County on Friday, Nov. 4, destroying Dakota Hudson and Lauren Patterson’s home in Paris, the couple told KXAS on Wednesday, Nov. 9.
“We could feel the house start lifting up around us,” Hudson told KXAS. “We could hear the creaking and breaking… Looking at this destruction it’s hard to fathom how anyone could survive it.”
The tornado destroyed the couple’s home, one of their cars and another house they were building, a TikTok video from Skylar Vest shows.
Surveying the damage, Hudson realized the engagement ring he’d purchased to surprise his girlfriend was gone, he told FOX 4.
“I was at a complete loss whenever I found out the ring was gone. I never really thought I was going to see it again,” he told the outlet.
The couple and their family searched for the ring for hours and found nothing, FOX 4 reported.
The Paris Junior College softball team came by the family’s property and offered to help with cleanup, head coach Shelby Shelton wrote in a Facebook post on Nov. 8. The couple accepted the help and told the team what they were searching for.
Hudson told the team that “if we find the ring he’s proposing on the spot,” Patterson told FOX 4.
“I guess when you tell 20 girls that you’re looking for an engagement ring they’re going to make sure you’re engaged by the end of the day,” Hudson told the outlet.
One of the players, Kate Rainey, found the ring in mud under rubble, Shelton said.
“She found it and she brought it over to me,” Hudson told FOX 4. “I grabbed it, it was covered in mud. The first thing I could see was a water bottle to rinse it off and I just walked over and asked her to marry me.”
Hudson dropped to one knee in the middle of the rubble, video shows, and proposed to Patterson, who immediately accepted. The entire group celebrated.
Shelton said the engagement “was truly one of the most remarkable things we have witnessed.”
“This was the light in a very dark moment,” Patterson told KXAS. “And it is still a dark moment, but this has given us reason to breathe and smile a little.”
The couple is currently staying elsewhere and plans to rebuild on the same property, they told KXAS.
Paris is about 135 miles northeast of Fort Worth.
This story was originally published November 11, 2022 at 10:10 AM with the headline "Boyfriend proposes moments after finding lost engagement ring in Texas tornado debris."
