Skip to main content

iPhone lost in a river for 10 months reunited with owner, and it still works

Apple says that its most recent iPhones are built to handle up to 30 minutes in up to six meters of water.

So imagine Owain Davies’ surprise when he discovered that his own iPhone still worked after lying submerged in a river for 10 months.

Recommended Videos

Perhaps even more remarkable is that the phone was recovered and handed back to Davies, who had long given up hope of ever seeing it again after losing it on a canoeing trip in Gloucestershire, England, last summer.

Miguel Pacheco found Davies’ iPhone while out boating with his family. Sharing the remarkable story with the BBC, Pacheco said the phone looked in bad shape and so he was convinced it would never power up. However, thinking that it might have content on it that was important to the owner, he took the handset home, dried it out, and put it on charge.

To his astonishment, the phone powered up.

The iPhone’s screensaver showed the date of August 13, the day the device fell in the water. It also showed a photo of a young couple. Pacheco posted the image on social media, and following thousands of shares, the owner’s identity was eventually confirmed.

With the phone now back in his possession, Davies explained that he lost the device when he toppled into the water after trying to stand up in his canoe.

“The phone was in my back pocket and as soon as I was in the water I realized the phone was gone,” he told the BBC.

In a similarly remarkable story from six years ago, a man’s iPhone 4 somehow survived 18 months — yes, 18 months — submerged in an icy lake, though the tough case that it was in may well have helped.

More recently, a man took drastic action and dived into freezing water to rescue his iPhone, which he’d dropped a few hours earlier. A passerby captured a video of the dramatic moment the owner jumped into the water to retrieve his handset. And yes, it still worked.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
The iPhone 17 Air might not stack up in terms of battery life
Alleged concept render of the iPhone 17 Air in black.

Concerns over iPhone 17 Air battery life might have been spot-on, according to a new report from The Information. Apple allegedly conducted internal tests that showed only 60 to 70 percent of iPhone 17 Air devices would make it through the day without needing a recharge, versus between 80 to 90 percent for other iPhone models.

Of course, part of that is due to the design of the handset. At just 5.5mm, the iPhone 17 Air is set to be the thinnest iPhone ever (and one of the thinnest phones on the market overall), but it might come at the cost of battery capacity. To help offset this problem, Apple is supposedly planning to launch an optional battery case accessory to give users a little bit more juice to get them through the day.

Read more
Galaxy S25 Edge leak reveals a look that’s almost iPhone Air like
Galaxy S25 Edge

Two highly anticipated smartphone models are set to launch before the end of the year: Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Edge and Apple’s iPhone 17 Air. Newly released images of the Galaxy S25 Edge, scheduled to arrive this month, reveal a striking resemblance to rumored images of the iPhone 17 Air, which is expected to hit the market in September.

The Galaxy S25 Edge, which Samsung teased earlier this year, will arrive on May 13. When the phone launches, it’s expected to be one of the thinnest smartphones in the world.

Read more
Apple could finally fix Siri on iPhones with help from Google’s Gemini
Gemini Live on an iPhone.

“Find me a decent coffee shop where I can sit and get work done?” I uttered into my iPhone’s mic. 

“I’ll need to use ChatGPT to write that.” That was Siri’s response in my interaction with Apple’s voice assistant just over a week ago. Google’s Gemini assistant helped me the way I expected it to. 

Read more