A UK paddleboarder redefined “life ring” after dropping her iPhone in the ocean, only for it to wash ashore in perfect working condition — an incredible 460 days later.
”I never thought I would have seen it again, or for it to be working,” Clare Atfield, 39, told SWNS. The miraculous saga occurred while she was paddleboarding — her standard morning routine — on August 4, 2021, off the coast of her hometown in Havant, Hampshire.
Disaster struck after the Brit fell off her board, whereupon her device disappeared into the water.
“I had been paddle boarding quite far out to sea but I fell off my board,” described Atfield, who always wore the device around her neck while paddling. “I got back on and kept going — but then realized I had lost my phone.”
The water woman added, “It was quite far out to sea, but it was inside one of those phone protection cases which came with my paddleboard, so it must have sank and just stayed there.”
At that point, Atfield became convinced that her device was gone for good. The Brit subsequently forgot about the phone until over a year later on November 7, when she was contacted by a local dog walker who claimed to have found it on the beach — not too far from where she’d originally lost the device.
Atfield said she left her bank card and mom’s medical card in the case, which the samaritan used to track her down. He then got in touch with her by calling her mother’s number on the latter.
“It’s mad he managed to find it,” exclaimed Atfield, who discovered that the device “worked “perfectly” despite its lengthy underwater Odyssey.
“The gentleman who found it and I were both just in shock that it still worked,” said the astonished gal describing the inadvertent iPhone promo. “The back of the phone is completely smashed, so you would have thought water would have got in.”
She attributed the electronic flotsam’s survival to the fact that it was in a waterproof bag at the time. Otherwise, the device would’ve likely become waterlogged or succumbed to the salt — which can corrode the inside of an iPhone.
Nonetheless, Atfield said she was “stunned more damage wasn’t caused to it, especially how rough the sea can get down there, it’s mad.”
No word as to whether she could hear the ocean when putting the device up to her ear.
In a similar example of Apple Products’ durability in 2019, an iPhone 6 survived 13 months in the Icelandic wilderness after falling out of a plane.