'We panicked': Jaws drop as couples' idyllic proposal takes a shocking turn

An American couple's idyllic proposal quickly fell into chaos after their engagement ring fell more than 30 metres off a snowy suspension bridge.

Trevor Van Camp surprised his girlfriend Danielle Jenkins with a visit to an illuminated suspension bridge at Michigan's Boyne Mountain Resort that she had wanted to go to.

During a nighttime stroll across the bridge, Van Camp got down on one knee and asked Jenkins to marry him.

Watch the video above.

She said yes, but as Van Camp went to put the engagement ring on her finger everything went wrong.

Van Camp, who admitted to being "nervous" at the time in a video interview published on the resort's Instagram account, retrieved the engagement ring from the box but it quickly slipped from his grasp.

The ring fell to the floor of the bridge and fell straight through it's metal grating before plummeting more than 30 metres to the ground.

"When I went to get the ring out of the box, mind you, I'm shaken up. I looked down, like not a good idea. And yeah, I dropped the ring," Van Camp revealed in the video interview.

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In footage captured of the moment and posted to the resort's official social media page, Van Camp's jaw drops to the floor as he realises what just happened.

Meanwhile, Jenkins laughed in shock as she watched the ring fall into the snow below.

"We panicked for a minute. We looked at each other. We said we've got to find it," Van Camp recalled.

Jenkins added that they were permitted by resort staff to go down to the hill and search for the diamond ring.

The couple spent hours searching for the ring before admitting defeat and making plans to go home and buy a new ring.

But Pat Harper, the resort's night shift snowmaking supervisor, decided to keep the search going.

Speaking in the video, Harper revealed that he grabbed some metal detectors and scanned the area for another 30 minutes before coming across the ring buried under the snow.

"I sat there for a minute and I was like, 'there's no way you just found that," Harper said.

After finally reuniting with the ring, Van Camp was finally able to put the ring on Jenkins' finger and complete his proposal.

"I give big props and kudos to Pat for doing that because her saved the day," Jenkins said.

"We now have a story to tell of our engagement and it's our story to share," Jenkins added.

"We'll probably come back in the wintertime to finish our journey across the bridge with the lights and enjoy the full experience that we cut short to find my ring."

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