A man was left in disbelief after he was reunited with his working iPhone that spent the last ten months covered in mud and weeds on a river bed.
Owain Davis, 35, dropped his into the River Wye phone after he went overboard while canoeing on a stag do in Cinderford, Gloucestershire.
Incredibly, ten months later, Miguel Pachaco was out canoeing along the same stretch of river with his young daughter when ‘something blue’ caught his eye.
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Pachaco pulled the phone out of the river bed and managed to get it going again after allowing it to dry out.
He took to social media to attempt to track down its owner, writing: “Found this iPhone in the River Wye when canoeing.
“Looks as if it’s been in the water since August last year, as that’s the date on the front of it.
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“I took it home, opened it up and dried it out with an airline and then left it in the airing cupboard overnight to dry properly.
“Put it on charge this morning and couldn’t believe my eyes. It’s actually working.
“Would be nice to find the owner so please feel free to share.”
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The post was shared more than 4,000 times and eventually made its way to Owain, but to make the whole incident slightly more incredible, Owain doesn’t use social media and he was actually tracked down when a friend of his fiancee spotted the post and let them know.
As well as being shocked that the iPhone is still functional, Owain, from Edinburgh, was impressed with the effort Miguel put in to not only finding him, but getting the phone working again in the first place.
He told BBC Radio Gloucestershire: “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.
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“Seriously though, I can’t believe it has been returned to me in working order.”
Miguel said: “I didn’t think it was any good – it was full of water.
“But I did all I could to dry it out because there may have been sentimental things on it.
“I know if I lost my phone, I’ve got a lot of pictures of my children, I know I’d want that back.
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“After drying it out, I put it on charge in the morning, and I just couldn’t believe it still worked.”
Topics: UK News, Technology, iPhone
Claire Reid