Paddleboarder's lost phone fished out of sea by beachgoer

Sept. 29 (UPI) -- A man who dropped his phone into the sea while paddleboarding in Britain was reunited with the device after it was found by a beach-goer who discovered it still worked.

Matty Bray said he was paddleboarding near Bacton, England, when he dropped his Samsung Galaxy phone into the North Sea on July 18.

Bray said he was unable to find the phone and thought he would never see it again until this week, when Emma Gilman shared photos from the phone on her Facebook page.

Gilman said she was visiting the beach in Bracton on July 31 when she found the phone floating in its protective case. She said no one at the beach claimed the phone, so she took it home to try to find the owner.

She said the phone still worked, but was locked so she couldn't access its information. Gilman said it wasn't until this week that she considered putting the phone's memory card into her own phone so she could access its memory.

Gilman posted photos from the memory card, including photos of Bray and his wife, to Facebook, asking locals to share the post in the hopes of identifying the owner.

She said it only took 20 minutes for members of the public to identify Bray.

Bray, who lives only a few miles from Gilman, visited the woman this week to retrieve his phone and reward her with flowers and sparkling wine.