A COUPLE said they were overjoyed after a ring that commemorates their hospital bedside wedding was returned to them.

Jane Barker, 37, of Ennerdale Avenue, Blackburn, thought she had lost her white gold ring forever after husband Neil dropped it outside the Royal Blackburn Hospital last month.

Jane was undergoing emergency surgery after suffering an ectopic pregnancy and woke to find that the ring was missing.

But a member of the hospital’s canteen staff found the ring and locked it away in the building’s safe. Jane was reunited with the ring this week.

She said: “I can’t thank that lady enough. That ring is worth more than life itself because it’s got so much meaning to it.

“When I first heard it was missing I didn’t know what to do.

“I was heartbroken.”

Jane and Neil married five years ago at the hospital after Neil had been told he had only hours to live because of a serious heart condition.

It was this story that led the pair to win a Lancashire Telegraph competition to find the most romantic tale from a local couple.