By Sahar Foladi
Indeed a golden outcome.
When Frank Lumanovski accidentally threw away a bunch of his wife’s gold worth up to $10,000 in the garbage, he was absolutely shattered.
That’s where Cr Jim Memeti together with the council and Lisa Fox from JJ Richards came in to save the day.
A distressed Mr Kumanovski called Cr Memeti who also happened to be who he went to school with.
“I’ve known Frank since we were little kids. I just told myself wow how will we help Frank now? I put him on Joe our personal assistance and she went on to our local staff and put it into action,” Cr Memeti said.
Thanks to the council’s great relationship with JJ Richards, they were able to pull together a team effort to find what seemed like impossible.
CEO Jacqui Weatherill and acting director of engineering services said they’ll do everything possible to help Mr Lumanovski.
Contract manager Ms Fox from JJ Richards said, “I’ve had similar events but usually it’s too late and ticked off in the waste facility and long gone.
As soon as someone says I threw off something I shouldn’t have we say I’m sorry if that’s the case because most times it’s too late.”
However, in this case timing was also valuable. Cr Memeti’s swift actions led to getting a hold of the truck before it could’ve been too late.
The truck was quarantined so they could go through it all.
“We coordinated in a hot morning with rubbish that was left overnight,” Ms Fox said.
The rubbish was then dumped onto council property.
“I drove the truck, we unloaded it and we had 500 bins on board which were 3 quarters full and tipped it out. Based on where the resident lived I was able to estimate whereabouts in the load we should be looking,” Ms Fox said.
Cr Memeti said he thought they’ll be there for days looking for the gold but to everyone’s surprise, the gold was found within five minutes of digging in.
Mr Lumaovski recognised the clipping to his garbage bag and discovered the gold within.
Everyone included in the hunt for gold was relieved that the hard work paid off.
“From the first touching base with me, me contacting the contractors and rest of the team it was unbelievable about how we found it and it had a great outcome,” Cr Memeti said.
It’s mind-boggling how the gold was retrieved within five minutes of searching.
“The chances to recover were zero. There’s been nothing like this where we had the opportunity to recover anything,” Ms Fox said.
Mr Lumanovski was overwhelmed with joy and forever grateful to Cr Memeti who made it happen.
“He’s so grateful. He was broken, to be able to out a smile on his face was unbelievable,” Cr Memeti said.
That’s a happy ending to Mr Lumanovski’s nightmare but for you all, be careful what you throw away and always make sure you check for anything valuable.
