Divers answer phone callout

Year of pictures retrieved after a near-fatal water fall

PHOTOS and videos have been retrieved from a phone that spent 15 months at the bottom of a waterfall following a near-fatal hiking mishap.

Kerry Geard sustained “really bad” injuries last year when she fell 40m from the top of Parsons Falls on the Fisher River, near Lake MacKenzie, about 50km southeast of Deloraine.

“It was a freak accident, she tripped on a little shrub,” Kerry’s husband Stewart Geard said.

Mrs Geard was lucky to be alive after spending five weeks in hospital with serious facial injuries.

Fifteen months later, Mr Geard seized an opportunity to retrieve his wife’s mobile phone from the Central Plateau scenic spot.

He contacted the Tas Uni

Dive Team after reading a Facebook post seeking diving spot recommendations.

“They were keen as mustard,” Mr Geard said. “Being a remote area with cold water it ticked a fair few boxes for them.”

Three divers traipsed to the 9.4m deep waters on Saturday.

Within two minutes the team found the shattered, waterlogged Samsung missing its protective case. The phone was completely unusable, but its SD memory card was intact.

Mr Geard said he and Mrs Geard spent the evening marvelling at years’ worth of photos and videos they thought had been lost forever.

“It was fantastic, it just made it all worthwhile,” he said.

“My wife had taken quite a few photos at the waterfalls (but) she couldn’t remember the trip.”

Among the memories, his favourite was seeing videos of their then new kitten Ivy.

Tas Uni Dive Club secretary Andrew Bain said the team were ecstatic to recover the lost phone and to experience the “magic”, crystal clear diving spot.

“I don’t remember seeing anything like that in fresh water in Tasmania,” he said.