Iphone lost in river- found!
I got a call from a guy who’s teen daughter had dropped her phone (which was in a waterproof case & containing hundreds and hundreds of unbacked or « cloud »ed pictures of her young teen life) in the Salt River while tubing. She was devastated. He said it was in about 3-4 feet of water near the shore and they had pinned the appx. spot. I was unable to make it in a timely manner so I suggested to him that because of the bulk of the phone he go to Big 5 and buy a hundred dollar bounty hunter detector and not install the coil on the shaft which would give him 5-6 feet of search depth. I advised him to have someone else hold the control box above the surface. The next day he texted me saying they had found the phone- still on- and with 25% power left on it! He told me both he and daughter couldn’t wait to find more stuff with the detector. More detectorists born! I just had to share this. Bryan Mihalek, Member of The Ringfinders in Arizona.
I got a call from Kelli about noon on Wednesday asking if I could find her wedding ring. She and her husband had been married for nine months and the ring was designed by her husband and custom made. She first called my son in law, David Cartee, who wasn’t able to help because of other obligations that day but he recommended She give me a call. Kelli’s ring was lost in a lake off a dock in Andalusia Alabama. It had been a couple day since she lost it. She got in the water up to about neck deep and tried doing a visual search but the bottom was muddy and she had no luck. Listening to her story I felt sure the ring had sunk out of sight in the mud. I told her I would help. I was in the Pensacola area at the time and Andalusia was about 2 hours away. I felt time was of the essence because I didn’t know that lake and fearing the ring might settle deeper in the muddy bottom over time. The lake turned out to be a reservoir used by the power company to generate electricity and the bank was very steep. When I saw how quickly the grade dropped off I began to worry about it having vanished in the deep water or my recovery activity dislodging it to deeper water. It was most important to plan carefully so that would not happen. I took my time making sure the search coil didn’t touch the bottom and to carefully completely search the area before moving my feet to deeper water. Fortunately I got a good signal, the ring had settled on a slope in about 5 foot of water. I set my recovery scoop and both husband and wife stood by in anticipation. I peered into the scoop then looked up at them and smiled, her beautiful precious ring was recovered and returned to her finger. Smiling faces and no more worries all around!
