Hunter Hoffman was having a fun day rafting on the Coquitlam River last July until the raft flipped, throwing he and his family members into the water.
No one was injured, but 16-year-old Hoffman’s iPhone was gone.
“When (the raft) flipped, my phone fell out. I went downriver,” he said.
Eight months later, Patti Bachus made a discovery on the beach near her Mayne Island home.
“I came across a white plastic thing that I picked up and it was fairly heavy and I looked at it and realized it was a phone case,” she said.
Hoffman’s phone appeared to have travelled approximately 50 km from the river to Piggott Bay on Mayne Island.
Bacchus picked up the phone, charged it, and found that it still worked but was locked. She decided to guess what the passcode might be.
“Just try putting in 123456, see what happens,” she said. “I did and to my astonishment, it opened. I nearly fell off my chair. I’ve never been good at cracking codes or anything like that.”
Bacchus went through Hoffman’s contacts and messaged his mother, who was skeptical of the find.
“Not trusting too quickly who might be on the other end, I asked if they would send me a picture and she did, so I knew then that she had our phone,” his mother said.
I asked if they would send me a picture and she did. So I knew then that she had her phone.
“When my mom said that she found the phone, I was like, ‘yeah, yeah, sure,'” he recalled.
Bacchus has mailed the still-working iPhone to Hoffman.