Lost Camera Found in a Colorado River After 13 Years

We haven't even made it to April yet, and 2023 has been rough. While it hasn't been as hard on us as 2020 and 2021, it seems like we get at least two pieces of bad news with every one piece of good news. The year isn't even half over yet, and a lot of folks are already looking forward to the next one, like watching Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

That's why we need to hang on to and celebrate anything good that happens, and believe it or not, we have that opportunity right now. In a rare bit of good news for the year 2023, a woman has been reunited with her lost camera after a 13-year odyssey in a Colorado river.

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The story dates back to 2010, on Colorado's Animas River. Coral Amayi was tubing at Smelter Rapid while part of a bachelorette party in Durango. After recovering from getting tossed from said tube, she woefully discovered that her digital camera was no longer amongst her possessions. A common occurrence in the tubing/rafting world, but a sad set of circumstances nonetheless.

All was lost until recently, when angler Spencer Greiner noticed something odd sticking out of the sand. It turned out to be the lost camera; though it was weathered to the point that you'd logically assume it was no longer functional. That being said, you never really know until you try it out, which is exactly what he did.

It's a good thing that he did, too, as not only was the camera's SD card still functional, but all of the photos it contained seemed to be intact and uncorrupted, as well. Luckily, there were pictures from the wedding that Ms. Amayi was part of stored on the card. In a further stroke of ridiculous good luck, Greiner posted one of the pictures in a Durango Facebook group, and received responses within an hour. He now has plans to return the pictures to Amayi, who is understandably dumbfounded that the camera was ever found.

You can definitely count this one as a miracle, especially when you consider that the camera was estimated to have traveled over a mile down the river from where it was lost to where it was found. Factor in the camera's 13 years in the water, and there's no other way to describe how that SD card was still working.

Thanks to FOX31 in Denver for catching this one.