Phone full of memories, lost at bottom of Falls Lake, found, returned and still works

The personal information, photos and memories stored in a smartphone can make it a priceless possession. Lyman Kiser of Raleigh didn’t appreciate that value until he lost his phone at the bottom of Falls Lake.

Kiser and his family were celebrating Labor Day at their favorite campground.

"We were having a great time with paddle boards, and if you go down to the next campsite, there’s a big rock you can jump off of," he said.

He used his iPhone to take pictures throughout the weekend, but soon, it would seem, the pictures and video were lost at the bottom of the lake.

"I took my phone with me into the lake, and it fell out and hit the bottom," he said.

Over the course of a few days, Kiser searched for the phone with no success.

The Kiser family favorite campground is also familiar to Shawn, who didn't want to give her last name to WRAL News.

She enjoys the same beach and water fun with her godson, who loves diving in the water to retrieve rocks and sticks. "He just happened to lean in one moment and picked up a phone! A real iPhone at that," she said.

She took the phone home to dry out in a bowl of rice and placed it on a shelf.

With COVID-19 concerns and other distractions, she forgot about the phone for close to a year.

Finally, she remembered and retrieved it from the kitchen cabinet. Then she plugged it in. She said, "If it didn’t work, I was planning to chuck it. But it worked! It came on!"

The phone was not locked or password protected, so Shawn was able to search for the owner’s identity. A medical ID on the device led her to a phone number.

When she saw all the family pictures of children on the phone, she was even more determined to find the owner and deliver the phone.

She left a voicemail for Kiser: "I found your phone at Falls Lake, in the lake."

His response: "No way!"

Shawn told WRAL News, "I mean that if that was my kid, I’d want somebody to take that long haul for me."

She says her attitude is in line with a favorite good-deeds mission called the "Pay It Forward Foundation."