(NECN/NBC: Greg Cergol) - In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, one FEMA worker made an interesting find amongst the rubble - a bottle containing a message written more than a decade ago.
The bottle caught FEMA worker Garrett Rivers' eye as he cleaned beaches in Patchogue, New York, but didn't seem like much. The green ginger ale bottle seemed like any other piece of debris, but he couldn't walk away from it.
"It just looked really old, so I picked it up," he said. "And, sure enough, there was a note inside."
The note carried a message from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, a 1989 movie.
"Be excellent to yourself dude," it read.
But on the back, there was a Manhattan phone number.
The note made its way into the hands of Patchogue village worker Brian Waldron, who felt compelled to call the mysterious number.
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"I had a feeling there was a story behind it, so I had to make the call," he said.
On the other end was Mimi Fery, whose daughter, Sidonie, had tossed the both into the Great South Bay 10 years ago when she was a child.
"I come home, and there's this message," Fery said. "And the man who called pretended to be in the movie."
Unfortunately, the message's author would not be able to return Waldron's call. Sidonie Fery died three years ago after falling off a cliff after a picnic with friends in Switzerland.
But the village workers who knew the story wanted to share their find with Sidonie's mother.
They delivered the bottle and the note to Fery a short time later.
"When you lose a child, every sign means so much more than it would otherwise," Fery said.
The story became well-known on the beach at Patchogue, and now a plaque will be dedicated in Sidonie's honor while some of her artwork will be sold on coffee mugs to raise money for budding artists in the area.
Watch the attached video for more.
