iPhone survives ten months underwater

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125555317 5086c755 A657 45b8 9f3a 07f08c160b6d (Image credit: OWAIN DAVIES / MIGUEL PACHACO)

What you need to know

  • An iPhone has been discovered after being lost in a river for ten months.
  • The phone actually survived ten months underwater and turned on when it was plugged in.
  • It was also returned to its original owner.

Imagine if you lost your iPhone in a river and got it back in working condition almost a year later. That's what happened here.

As reported by the BBC, Owain Davies dropped his iPhone into the River Wye in Cinderford, Gloucestershire (England) in August of last year. Incredibly, ten months later, a man by the name of Miguel Pacheco found the phone while canoeing with his family.

Pacheco hesitantly dried out the phone and, when he plugged it in, it actually turned on and started to charge.

Mr Pacheco spotted "something blue floating in the water" while canoeing with his daughter. After Mr Pacheco, from Drybrook, Gloucestershire, found the phone, he dried it out with an airline and compressor, before placing it in the airing cupboard overnight."In the morning when I put it on charge, I just couldn't believe it," he said. The screensaver showed a photo of a man and woman with the date 13 August; the day it had fallen into the water.

125555310 Collagemaker 21 Jun 2022 10.56 Am

125555310 Collagemaker 21 Jun 2022 10.56 Am (Image credit: OWAIN DAVIES / MIGUEL PACHACO)

Thankfully, Davies' screensaver was a photo of himself so Pacheco shared the photo on social media where it was eventually recognized by a friend of its original owner. Davies was blown away that Pacheco took such efforts to get it back to him, saying "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."

The iPhone was been water-resistant for years now but what you don't necessarily expect is for it to survive ten months at the bottom of a river.

If that kind of build quality is something you are interested in, check out our list of the Best iPhone deals for Prime Day 2022.

Joe Wituschek
Contributor

Joe Wituschek is a Contributor at iMore. With over ten years in the technology industry, one of them being at Apple, Joe now covers the company for the website. In addition to covering breaking news, Joe also writes editorials and reviews for a range of products. He fell in love with Apple products when he got an iPod nano for Christmas almost twenty years ago. Despite being considered a "heavy" user, he has always preferred the consumer-focused products like the MacBook Air, iPad mini, and iPhone 13 mini. He will fight to the death to keep a mini iPhone in the lineup. In his free time, Joe enjoys video games, movies, photography, running, and basically everything outdoors.