Determined owner retrieves working iPhone from frozen lake after month underwater

After an unexpected dunk and submersion for 30 days, a woman retrieved her iPhone from a frozen lake — and it worked fine when powered on.

Angie Carriere was celebrating her fiftieth birthday with a bit of ice fishing in Waskesiu Lake, Saskatchewan. A gust of wind blew the tent up, forcing her to react to the event, and drop the iPhone into the lake.

At first, she gave up on ever seeing the phone again. Then, she was determined to save the phone so she could get her photos of the trip back.

With the help of some friends, she used a fish finder to locate the submerged iPhone and a magnet to pull it back up. To her surprise, the iPhone booted, and was fully functional.

The iPhone seen through a fish finder being pulled up with a strong magnet

While not mentioned in the news report, it appears to be an iPhone 11 Pro. This model is rated for IP68 which protects the device at up to four meters for 30 minutes. Apple doesn't recommend users submerge their iPhone for any reason.

There are numerous cases of an iPhone surviving a prolonged dunk underwater, but Apple doesn't officially support those situations for liability reasons.

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15 Comments

mike1 3431 comments · 10 Years

About 3 years ago

Wasn't the enclosure glass with an aluminum frame, on an iPhone11? Are there enough metal internal parts for a magnet to work???

Flytrap 61 comments · 7 Years

mike1 said:

Wasn't the enclosure glass with an aluminum frame, on an iPhone11? Are there enough metal internal parts for a magnet to work???

Although the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro look very similar, the ‌iPhone 11‌ is made with an aluminium frame while the ‌iPhone 11‌ Pro frame is made of stainless steel - which is a ferrous metal and will attach to any magnet.

Also, ever since the iPhone 8, all iPhone devices support wireless charging as per the Qi standard. This works through a magnetic coil located on the back of the phone and is the reason why all these iPhones have glass backs as well. The metal core in the Qi coil is also slightly ferrous and will form a faint attraction to a strong external magnet.

dr. x 278 comments · 19 Years

That's amazing 30 days after it was dropped in the lake, it still worked.

Here is the video for those interested.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=2167607&jwsource=cl

M68000 868 comments · 7 Years

I’m not saying this is a made up story, but I have to say this is really hard to believe. But amazing for sure.

sflocal 6133 comments · 16 Years

"Although 30 days had passed, Angie still wanted to retrieve her iPhone so that she could at least try to get replaced by Apple..."

Uhm... not sure what reality she's living in, but what story is she going to fabricate that would get Apple to replace her phone after being on the bottom of a lake?