A man residing in the United Kingdom has gotten his iPhone back, in working condition, 10 months after he dropped it into a river.
Owain Davies dropped his iPhone into the River Wye near Cinderford, Gloucestershire in August 2021, reports the BBC. At the time, Davies was canoeing during a bachelor party. Gone forever, right?
However, in June, Miguel Pacheco of Drybook, Gloucestershire found the device while he was canoeing in the river. Pacheco took it home, dried it out, and attempted to track down its owner by posting images of it online.
While Pacheco didn’t think drying out the iPhone would do any good, because it was “full of water,” he still worked to dry the device, because he knew it could have contained sentimental data images.
“I know if I lost my phone, I’ve got a lot of pictures of my children, I know I’d want that back,” he said.
Pacheco dried out the device with an air compressor before placing it into an airing cupboard to dry. When he put it on the charger the next morning, the background showed a picture of a man and woman, as well as August 13 — the date that the device fell into the water.
“I just couldn’t believe it,” Pacheco said.
Pacheco’s image posts on Facebook were shared more than 4,000 times. Eventually, friends of Davies and his fiancee Fiona Gardner recognized the images and contacted him. It was eventually returned in working order.
Davies explained to the BBC how the device fell into the river.
“I was in a two-man canoe and my partner probably shouldn’t have stood up, and needless to say we fell in,” he said. “The phone was in my back pocket and as soon as it was in the water I realized the phone was gone.”
Davies praised Pacheco for his efforts to save the device. “My natural reaction would be to hand it into the nearest pub. It wouldn’t be to use my air compressor to dry it out and dismantle it,” he said.
Newer iPhone models are rated as IP68 water-resistant, allowing them to withstand up to 1.5 meters of fresh water for up to 30 minutes.