iPhone found at the bottom of a lake, still works

We've seen our fair share of smartphone survival stories, but this definitely ranks among the most unlikely.

It all started with a man named Michael Guntrum, resident of Knox, Pennsylvania. He decided to go ice fishing with friends and when he got a bite on his hook, his iPhone 4 suffered a nasty incident. The device slipped off Michael's lap, fell on the ice and rolled straight through the hole in the ice before splashing in the lake below.

“I caught the fish – it was a blue gill – but it wasn't worth it,” said Michael to BuzzFeed News.


So far, so good. A tragic story that ends with the death of an iPhone – we've seen it before. Well, not really, since the lake was drained later the same year, because of structural deficiencies of its dam. According to local news, a lot of residents that usually frequented the lake went treasure hunting in what was now a muddy field of lost fishing lures and various other accidentally dropped items, which were now easy to recover.

One of these people was Daniel Kalgren, a mechanical engineer, who went to the drained lake with his trusty metal detector. And the only thing he found the entire day was an iPhone 4, buried under 6 inches of mud and clay, but still in its OtterBox case. “I took the phone home, cleaned it, and put it in rice – just out of curiosity to see if it would still work,” Kalgren said.

After two days, the iPhone turned on, displaying a Pittsburgh Penguins screensaver in all its glory. Kalgren then managed to find Guntrum's number on the phone and called him to let him know that the device was found. The original owner didn't believe him at first. “He sent me a picture and asked, 'Does this look familiar?' and I recognized the screensaver,” Guntrum said.

Kalgren said he will mail the phone back to its original owner. As for what he'll do with it, Guntrum said he's planning to repair it. “My mom needs a smartphone, so I'll give it to her”, he told BuzzFeed.

As far as smartphone survival stories go, this is a pretty good one. That's definitely one brave little iPhone!