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'I could feel it in my guts': Bride-to-be swallows engagement ring while asleep, has it surgically removed

Gillian Wolski
·Lifestyle & Entertainment Producer
Updated

When Jenna Evans, 29, went to sleep on Tuesday night, she never dreamed of waking up the following morning having swallowed her 2.4-carat diamond engagement ring.

Well, that’s exactly what the bride-to-be from San Diego, California, did.

An x-ray of a woman's abdomen taken after she swallowed an engagement ring while asleep.
Bride-to-be swallows engagement ring while asleep, has it surgically removed. Photo: Facebook/jenna.evans.121.

Woman swallows own ring

Thankfully, as the defence contractor tells Yahoo Lifestyle, she lived to tell the tale and now has her beloved bling back on her finger - but it wasn’t without its stomach-churning moments.

“It did not taste good! I would not recommend swallowing engagement rings to anyone else,” she jokes.

Before speaking to us, Jenna took to Facebook to share her mishap which saw her undergo surgery to remove the platinum-set cushion-cut diamond.

A photo of a woman in a hospital bed about to go into surgery to remove an engagement ring she swallowed while asleep.
Jenna underwent an upper endoscopy to retrieve her ring. Photo: Facebook/jenna.evans.121.

“So, in case you missed it, I swallowed my engagement ring in my sleep on Tuesday night. I actually remember doing it, but I thought I was dreaming, so I went back to sleep,” Jenna wrote in the post.

When she opened her eyes hours later she was shocked to discover that she hadn’t had a nightmare - her beautiful ring was actually somewhere inside her.

Jenna goes on to describe how she broke the news to her fiancé, Bob Howell, and later her mum.

“We laughed pretty hard for about an hour and a half,” she wrote, and it seems that the soon-to-be husband and wife continued chuckling right to the emergency room.

A woman shows off her engagement ring after having it surgically removed from her intestine.
In safe hands: Jenna was reunited with her ring post-op. Photo: Facebook/jenna.evans.121.

How do you retrieve a swallowed ring?

Things took a serious turn when an x-ray of her abdomen - which revealed the ring was sitting in her stomach - left two doctors in shock.

They consulted a gastroenterologist and, as Jenna explained, “decided it would be best NOT to let nature take its course”.

The experts decided to retrieve the piece of jewellery via a procedure called an upper endoscopy which involves inserting a thin instrument or ‘scope’ with a light and camera at its tip through the mouth and down into the upper digestive tract.

“At this point, I could definitely feel it in my guts, it was starting to really hurt and make us nervous,” she said of the US size 6.5 - or 1.7cm diameter - ring.

A photo of an engagement ring in a woman's intestine taken during an upper endoscopy.
A photo of the ring taken during the upper endoscopy. Photo: Facebook/jenna.evans.121.

Jenna’s happy ending

Being asked to sign a waiver in case of death during the op caused Jenna to break down.

“I cried a lot because I would be SO MAD if I died. I waited a long time for that damn engagement ring and I WILL marry Bobby Howell DAMNIT,” she wrote.

The procedure “went great,” with surgeons locating the ring “just beyond my stomach, in my intestines”.

After recovering in hospital, Jenna and her future husband - who kept a firm hold on the ring - celebrated with a trip to local fast-food restaurant, In N Out.

But it was only the following day that Jenna was reunited with her sparkler, on one condition.

“I promised not to swallow it again, we're still getting married and all is right in the world,” she concluded her post.

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