• Florida resident Ashley Garner said she lost her wedding ring in her front yard days before Hurricane Ian. 
• Garner lost hope in seeing the ring again after she and her family searched the yard for three days before the storm.
• She said her husband found the ring in the storm's debris by their driveway while cleaning up.

Ashley Garner rarely takes off her wedding ring.

Three days before Hurricane Ian pummeled Florida's west coast with catastrophic winds and storm surges, Garner, 32, removed her ring and placed it on a chair inside her garage. She was going to work out with a punching bag, something she said she hadn't done in years. 

"So I took off all of my rings, completely forgot because that's not normal for me to take off my rings. I sleep with them — I don't take them off," Garner said. 

The next day, Garner, who live in Fort Myers, realized her ring was missing. The chair had been moved and when she went to look for it, she only found two other rings, not her wedding ring, Garner said.

"Obviously, it's a symbol that means so much to me, but it was out of my control," she said. "I couldn't do anything other than look for it, and if I couldn't find it, that's all I can do."

Panicked, Garner, her husband, and three children searched her front yard outside of the garage, Garner said. 

The family searched for two days as Hurricane Ian moved on from Cuba and made landfall in Florida. 

"The storm's coming, if we don't find it now, it's gone, and I'm okay with that," Garner told herself. "I'm not a materialistic type of person. It is what it is, and I just let it go, and then I forgot about it."

Hurricane Ian devastated Fort Myers Beach, one of the hardest hit areas in the storm's path. A 10-foot surge of water had poured into the community. After the storm passed, Garner said her family went outside to clean up their front yard. 

Garner told Insider that her missing wedding ring was the last thing on her mind when she saw her neighborhood was devastated by Hurricane Ian.

"I mean, with the devastation, and I mean, when you walked out of our front garage, it was literally tree branches everywhere. You couldn't walk. Trees were on cars, on top of roofs," Garner said.

While the full scope of Hurricane Ian's destruction is still being assessed, losses have been predicted to fall between $28 billion and $47 billion, making it Florida's costliest storm since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, according to CoreLogic, a research company that estimates storm damage.

Ten minutes into cleaning up debris, Garner said her husband made a shocking discovery.

Her lost wedding ring was found in the brush by their driveway. Garner's husband gave the ring to their eldest son to give to Garner who was cleaning up tree branches by the curb. 

"I didn't believe it. He handed it to me. I screamed, and then I just sat," she said. 

Garner told Insider that she believed her wedding ring coming back to her was a sign that things were going to get better.

"I just thanked God for providing and showing us hope because it's devastating seeing all of the homes and Fort Myers Beach completely gone and lives lost. And to have this one thing brought back to me, it gave me a sign to know that everything was going to be okay and that we needed to keep pushing forward," Garner told Insider. 

She said she would not be taking her ring off ever again, and if it had never been found, she would make her husband buy her a new one.

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