This started out as a ring search for a young lady’s engagement ring that wasn’t found. As I’m doing my grid search back and forth across the wet sand, I got a loud signal. Not sure what it was but I knew it wasn’t the ring. Because of the size of the target, I thought I either had a pair of sunglasses or a cell phone. After digging the target out from under about 8 inches of wet sand, sure enough I had an IPhone and not in real good shape. I put in it my pouch and continued searching for the ring.

I had actually forgotten about the phone, and it set in my pouch in the trunk of my car for a day. Maybe that turned out to be a good thing and gave it a chance to dry out in 90 plus degree temperatures. I couldn’t get the phone to turn on, so I wasn’t sure if the phone battery was dead or the phone itself was ruined. I found one of my plugs that fit and plugged it in to see if it’d charge. After a couple of hours, the phone was coming to life. After there was enough charge, I started playing with it. Luckily, I got to the password page and saw the “emergency” Icon in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen and pushed it. Up popped a name and other info – Chance XXXX, age 15. Ok, I had something to go on. I first went through a FB search and found a number of Chances and sent each of them a private message. Long shot, but maybe they got a new phone and would get the message. The next thing I did was post on the Holden Beach FB page with a picture of the phone’s main page. I also wrote “Chance XXXX or parents of, I came across your iPhone buried in about 8” of wet sand. Cleaned and charged it and it appears to be working. Wanted to see if I could find you on here before I turn it over to the Holden Beach Police. Call or text and included my phone number.” Within two hours I saw where a lady had tagged a Lena with the same last name as the boy. Shortly after that I got a response on FB saying – “Thank you so much. My son thought it was lost forever.”  I also got a text from Lena (Chance’s mother) who 100% verified the phone was her son’s. She told me the story that Chance was out on the beach looking for shark’s teeth and at some point, the phone fell out of his pocket. She also said that they were on Holden Beach during the week of June 20^th. I found the phone on July 8^th, so the phone was buried in the sand for roughly 2 weeks. I put the phone in the mail on Monday, Jul 11^th and because of the lithium battery it had to go ground delivery through the USPS. It took 2 weeks for the phone to finally get home to Ohio. I don’t know if Chance found any shark’s teeth or not, but my wife has quite the collection and sent along 3 shark’s teeth and an olive shell to brighten things up for Chance.

Chance – glad I could get your phone back to you; sorry it may have ruined your chances of getting a new phone for Christmas. Take care young man!!

Jim