28th May 2023 – (Wisconsin) The Four Lakes Scuba Club in Wisconsin is known for its annual cleanup dives, where club members remove items that are harmful to the environment from certain lakes. Among the items they find are lost phones, which they try to charge up and return to their owners if possible. Recently, while doing their civic duty and cleaning up Lake Mendota, the club’s divers discovered an Apple iPhone that was still working. The phone was turned over to the UW-Madison Police Department, and a detective was able to find the name of the owner by accessing the device.
The iPhone belonged to Ellie Eisenberg, a UW-Madison graduate who had lost her phone in the summer of 2022 while out on a boat. She had given up hope of ever finding it and had purchased a new phone. However, to her surprise, the phone was still functional after spending a year at the bottom of Lake Mendota.
The scuba club’s president, Ellen Evans, said that they target items that are bad for the environment, such as plastic bags, plastic cups, plastic bottles, and electronics. The club has found a wide variety of items during their cleanup dives, including a green card, a gun, an empty cash register drawer, bowling balls, golf balls, footballs, dice, a toilet tank, a stove, laundry carts, trays, street signs, bikes, and anchors.
Eisenberg was thrilledto have her lost iPhone returned to her and expressed curiosity about what other items might be salvageable from Lake Mendota. She even joked about getting a scuba set and joining the club to search for more lost treasures. The scuba club‘s efforts serve as a reminder of the importance of protecting the environment and preserving natural resources. By removing harmful items from the lake, the club is helping to ensure that the lake remains clean and safe for the wildlife that depend on it and the people who enjoy it.
This isn’t the first time a lost iPhone has been reunited with its owner after a long hiatus. In one particularly extreme case, an iPhone lost on Halloween night in 2012 was discovered ten years later deep inside the pipes connected to a toilet inside a house. Unfortunately, that particular phone was not able to turn back on.