An 80-year-old woman from Florida was left embarrassed after she accidentally a REAL diamond worth $5,000 at a charity event in Tampa, Florida.
According to USA Today (via Newser), the octogenarian attended a fashion show fundraiser in Tampa on Saturday (Apr 27), and purchased a $20 flute of champagne with a small, but potentially very valuable, prize inside.
Of the 400 glasses, 399 contained a measly $10 cubic zirconia, and 1 lucky glass held the $5,000 diamond. Miriam Tucker had that lucky glass … but the only problem was that she accidentally swallowed the diamond.
“I thought I’d drink a bit of champagne so I didn’t have to stick my finger so far into the glass,” Tucker tells the Tampa Bay Times. “We were laughing and talking when I realized I swallowed it.”
Embarrassed, and assuming she’d only ingested cubic zirconia, Tucker stayed quiet and waited for the winner’s excited scream. None came, and jewelers with probes and a loupe could not find the winner, so Tucker was finally forced to admit what happened.
She already had the colonoscopy scheduled, so she warned her doctor what he might find; he did indeed locate the missing diamond, which was sent to the jewelry store in a biohazard bag, cleaned, and returned to Tucker.
Yikes … Talk about a diamond in the rough!
