Member of scuba diving class finds paddleboarder’s lost phone

When a paddleboarder lost her iPhone after falling into the water off Massachusetts earlier this month she thought it was probably gone for good.

But the next day Laura Hernandez, from New York, returned to the Rockport beach and approached the instructor of a novice scuba diving class and told him her situation.

Instructor Larry Bettencourt told her that the odds of finding the phone, even with its distinctive pink case, were not good, but he told the class to keep an eye out for it, The Boston Globe reported.

Amazingly, Vanessa Kahn, 26, of Peabody, making her first open-water ocean dive, spotted the phone in water about 25ft deep.

“The bright pink waterproof case stuck out like a sore thumb … it was like almost neatly placed into a bed of green seaweed,” Ms Kahn said.

She waved the phone around in the water and the screen glowed.

Ms Kahn returned to the surface, turned on the camera and snapped a selfie, then waved the phone in triumph to Ms Hernandez standing on the beach.

“Her face lit up,” she said.

“I could tell that she was so excited.”

Excited enough to give Ms Kahn a 300 dollar (£260) reward.