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There aren’t many mishaps as gut-wrenching as dropping or losing a cell phone — except maybe dropping it and losing it in the ocean.
For Laura Hernandez of New York, this is a feeling she knows all too well, after a recent trip to a beach in Rockport, Massachusetts.
Hernandez was paddleboarding there in August when she fell into the water and lost her iPhone, as The Boston Globe reported.
When Hernandez looked into the water, she could see her pink waterproof pouch — which was holding her phone — as it sunk to the bottom of the ocean, the Globe and the Associated Press pointed out.
Laura Hernandez (not shown) was paddleboarding in August in Rockport, Mass., when she dropped her phone in the ocean. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Hernandez didn’t settle for this outcome, however.
She went back to the beach the next day and approached the instructor of a scuba diving class — explaining what had happened the day before.
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The instructor, Larry Bettencourt, reportedly didn’t seem optimistic about the situation — but told his scuba students to keep an eye out for a pink pouch.
Incredibly, one of the students, Vanessa Kahn of Peabody, Mass., soon spotted the pink pouch, the AP reported.
Hernandez did not give up on finding her iPhone and even went back to the beach the next day to search for it. (iStock)
This was Kahn’s first time doing open-water dives in the ocean — and the water was reportedly about 25 feet deep.
"The bright pink waterproof case stuck out like a sore thumb … It was like almost neatly placed into a bed of green seaweed," she said to the Globe.
Hernandez gave Kahn a $300 reward after she was reunited with her iPhone.
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Scuba diving, the act of underwater diving while using breathing equipment separate from surface air, is growing in popularity.
Kahn found the pink phone pouch during her first dive as a student in a scuba diving class off the coast of Massachusetts. (Tane Sinclair-Taylor/ARC Center of Excellence via AP)
There were 2.72 million scuba diving participants in the U.S. in 2019 alone, according to the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI).
The activity has become a popular feature at hotels and resorts around the world as well.
Around 20% of European tourists are certified divers and travel to dive spots around the world, according to the PADI.
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Further, the number of female divers is increasing rapidly.
In 2018, 38% of the PADI certifications were female — up from 34.4% in 2013, the organization reported.
The Associated Press and Fox 43 contributed to this report.
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