A Florida Man Jumps Into the Ocean After Dropping the Ring During His Proposal

This couple's engagement quickly took a turn.

Engagement ring in box

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When Scott Clyne was getting ready to pop the question to his girlfriend Suzie Tucker on November 12, 2022, he wasn’t expecting a dramatic turn of events: After all, the Sarasota, Florida, resident organized a romantic proposal on a boat during sunset, and he made sure that all the details were in order before they went out onto the water. Unfortunately, nothing went according to plan. 

In a video that Clyne later posted on Facebook, he and his then girlfriend were standing on the bow of the boat, replicating the iconic pose from Titanic. Clyne proceeded to pull a ring box out of his pocket just as he was about to get down on one knee. A few seconds later, things took a turn when the box fell into the ocean. Immediately, Clyne dove into the water, and he emerged shortly after holding the box with a triumphant expression. After a friend helped Clyne back into the boat, he finished the proposal. Tucker laughed at the whole situation and said “yes.” 

The whole saga was captured on video, and Clyne posted it across his social media platforms. “This is 100% real. 100% my luck. 100% will never forget….” the caption says. On TikTok alone, the video has 8 million views.

Before the proposal mishap, Clyne encountered another interruption that delayed his plans to pop the question. On a phone call with Today, the Florida man said he wanted to propose in late September of 2022 while the couple was on a vacation in the Florida Keys. However, when Hurricane Ian emerged, he decided to hold off on the proposal until a later date. Despite the change of plans, Clyne told the outlet that he knew he still wanted to propose on a boat because it plays an important part in their love story. “It’s how we first met,” he explains. “We met on a sandbar through mutual friends in Inglewood, and it’s our passion to boat, so I figured that the perfect proposal would be to do it at sunset with our two best friends and get them involved. It was a beautiful night for it until everything went wrong with the proposal.”

Clyne had everything planned out. He had asked his friends to throw rose petals and uncover a “Will you marry me?” banner while he distracted his girlfriend by mimicking the Titanic pose. Once his friends signaled that everything was ready to go, he grabbed the box, but it slipped out of his hands. “I went immediately in after it,” he said. “It just happened so fast.”

Clyne revealed that Tucker didn’t realize what was happening. “She said she was focused on the banner,” he mentions. “By the time the ring fell out, she thought I had fallen over. She was laughing hysterically, but she didn’t even see the ring drop or anything.” After the proposal, Clyne took Tucker to dinner to celebrate. “I obviously didn’t plan to be swimming, and I didn’t bring an extra pair of clothes, so I attended dinner soaking wet,” he laughs.

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