Bernard, the 82-year-old retired police officer, was heartbroken when he 1 his precious medal. His house was broken into last December. The thief took away some jewelry, some cash and his treasured medal given for his 32 years of 2 with Liverpool Police Station. He believed the medal was gone forever.
Three months later, David, a young volunteer pulled the medal from a river in a "one-in-a-million" catch. The young man was in a litter clean-up programme in Liverpool. He had been using a large magnet (磁铁) to 3 metal rubbish out of the river for 30 minutes when he found a small blue metal box.
"I would have never found the medal if we hadn't 4 all the rubbish in the river first," said David. "At first, we found old bits of shopping carts and other metal items but about half an hour later, I pulled out the 5, and it's got 'Police Long Service Medal' written on it, It really was like finding a needle in a haystack (干草堆)."
6, the medal was carved with Bernard's name and the medal number, which David used to 7 the senior's phone number online. The retired police officer was 8 when he received a call saying the medal had been found in a river, still in its metal box. And when he was told it would be 9 to him by the young man who found it, his face lit up. David then planned a visit to meet Bernard and returned the medal to him.
"This was truly the best 10 for cleaning up that rubbish... It's amazing," David said.
