A TEENAGER from Christchurch has been reunited with his phone after it has spent 16 hours on the sea floor off Bournemouth beach.

Ann McGrath, a 60-year-old open swimmer from Mudeford, went out swimming in Poole Bay at 7.30am on Monday July 19.

As she was admiring the schools of fish in the water, she noticed the iPhone XR on the seabed.

She said: “I could see the bottom and I noticed this phone was just sticking up out of the sand.

“I had to go down around six metres for it, and when I brought it to the surface, it turned on.

“I could see the picture on the screensaver which meant that someone could identify it.”

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Having taken the phone home to charge it, Ann spotted a text message that was sent to the phone and called the sender.

“The battery was down to around four per cent, so I charged it up and then lots of notifications came through,” Ann added.

“I was looking out for someone’s first name and surname so I could look them up on Facebook, but they were only showing as first names.

“Then someone sent a text number and I thought that is my key to get this phone back to its owner.”

Having explained how she came to be in possession of the phone, she was put in touch with the owner of the phone.

Ann said: “The person I spoke to said that his friend who owned the phone had given up hope and consider it lost forever.

“He then asked if he could identify the phone and the owner arranged to come to me and get it.

“He was absolutely over the moon. I was really happy to have found it and reunite it with its owner.”

The phone was found to have been on the sea floor for almost 16 hours without a case.

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Alex Tanner, also from Mudeford, said that was out on Bournemouth beach with a group of friends on Sunday July 18.

Half an hour after venturing out into the sea, the 18-year-old realised that he had left his iPhone in his pocket and that it had fallen out whilst he was in the water.

The former Brockenhurst college student said: “I was distraught. I had just finished paying off my phone contract.

“On Monday I was looking at new phones to buy and was about to pay for one when my mate messaged me to say that someone had found a phone in the sea.

“I thought that he was having a joke with me, but he explained what the lady had told him, and he gave me her number to call. We arranged to meet, and she gave handed it back over to me.

“I was extremely upset on Sunday but luckily Anne came to the rescue. I have had a bit of bad fortune recently so maybe that is changing now.”