Man returns lost iPhone to its owner using Apple’s Medical ID feature: All the details

iphone

People lose phones all the time, but not many get them back—unless it’s an iPhone (pun intended). There have been many heroic tales of how iPhones were found in working condition even months after being submerged underwater. A similar story of a man finding a lost iPhone has surfaced again, and this time, the Medical ID feature of the Apple device helped the man return it to its owners.

Here’s what happened

The story was shared by a Threads user called Thiago Itagaki in a post on the social media platform. He revealed that he found an iPhone while swimming at Brazil’s Maresias beach. The phone was 3 meters deep in water and about 10 meters away from the sand. He asked the people sitting by the beach if the iPhone belonged to them, but no one answered in the affirmative.

“The phone was completely out of battery. It also had a case with three credit cards in it. I tried to find the owner by name but couldn’t find anyone I was sure was the right person,” he said.

Itagaki then took the phone home, waited for it to dry completely, and plugged it into a charger. He was able to turn on the phone, which was working fine. That’s when the idea of using the Medical ID feature came to his mind.

“I called a contact named ‘Love’ and was able to reach the owner of the phone. The couple are from São Paulo and weren’t even in Maresias anymore. The owner lost the phone on New Year’s Eve, and it was underwater for four days, but it’s still working. I assumed the phone had only been there for a few hours, but it had been days,” he said.

How the Medical ID feature works

For the unversed, the Medical ID feature has been designed to handle emergency situations. Your iPhone and Apple Watch can display health-related information, allowing anyone attending to you in an emergency to access your details. Additionally, your emergency contacts can be notified if you use Emergency SOS via satellite.