A woman who dropped her phone into the River Thames surprised to miraculously find it in the water two months later. Oh, and stranger still - it still worked.
Thayse Bussolo-Vieira, 29, had been feeding the swans in early February when her brand new iPhone 8 slipped out of her pocket, tumbling down into the water.
Thayse, a British Airways administrator from Staines-upon-Thames in Surrey, contemplated jumping in to rescue her £480 ($587) phone, but eventually gave up after realising it would just be too dangerous.
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Thayse recalled: "The river was really high and strong because it had been raining a lot and it just fell out.
"It had almost 20,000 photos on from five trips abroad with my fiancé. It made me really depressed. I thought I would have lost them forever."
Fast forward to two months later, when Thayse and her fiance James Tongue returned to the spot on their government-sanctioned daily walk - which was when they happened to stumble across something familiar lying on the riverbed.
Thayse continued: "On Wednesday we went for a walk and my fiancé said just show me where you dropped it.
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"We looked in the river and it was there. It was unbelievable."
Waitrose delivery driver James, 27, added: "As the river was calm and the weather was nice we could see the iPhone clearly. It was in the same place, just sitting at the bottom like a rock."
While the iPhone was in sight, as it was sitting two metres beneath the surface it was slightly too far away for them to reach.
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Thayse and James decided to head home to look for something to retrieve it with, eventually deciding to fashion a homemade fishing net out of household objects, attaching a kitchen sieve to the end of a broom.
They returned to the spot in Staines-upon-Thames the next day, armed with their new contraption.
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However, even with their new gadget, the phone still proved tricky to obtain - and the two spent 40 minutes fighting against the current to reach it.
Thayse continued: "The river was running really quickly. We were about to give up when James went to find a big stick."
James added: "Thayse held the net while I got a stick and pushed the phone into it. Then I fished it out. We had to work as a team. It was nice."
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The phone was covered in dirt, but Thayse was just happy to get the model back.
She said: "We were screaming and everything. But of course we didn't know if it was going to work."
After leaving the phone in a bowl of rice overnight, the couple - who are due to get married this September - connected it to a charger last week on 27 March.
And lo and behold, it worked.
Thayse said: "It turned on. I was like 'yay, it's working.' I could not believe it. I was so pleased I got my photos back. I thought they were gone forever."
Featured Image Credit: SWNS
Topics: UK News, News, Technology, Apple