FOLSOM (KTXL) — A cell phone wallet containing ID cards, credit cards and an iPhone was recovered from the bottom of Lake Natoma and returned to its owner in good condition more than a month after it went missing.

The recovered items belong to Folsom resident Alyson Newe. She had gone kayaking on the lake in July with her 9-month-old retriever, Coda. The outing took a turn when they found themselves in the vicinity of another kayaker with a dog.

“And the dog saw my puppy, jumped into the lake, and my dog followed suit,” Newe told FOX40. “Over the kayak went.”

When Newe’s kayak rolled, the iPhone wallet and its contents, all sealed in a zip-close bag, sank into the lake.

“So I figured that was going to be the end of it,” Newe recalled.

But this past Sunday, a young man came to the door of her home and handed Alyson’s husband the wallet, with all of its contents still inside. The good Samaritan was a scuba diver.

“He said that when he found it it was 20 feet under on the lake bottom floor and the Ziploc bag was still intact but it was completely filled with water,” Newe said.

The phone was actually able to charge up and turn on, much to Newe’s amazement. She sent the scuba diver an Amazon gift card as a thank you gesture.

Newe said the young man wanted no publicity.

“It was just common decency,” Newe said, regarding the man’s act of kindness. “He would hope that any individual would do that. And he doesn’t go down diving into these lakes looking for treasures. But he said that any time he has found something when he’s gone diving, he has always tried to find the owners of it because he knows what it feels like to lose something.”

The man says he was especially motivated when he saw Newe’s military ID in the wallet. She served 21 years in the Navy.

“He has a deep compassion for all the service people and so he’s like, ‘I’ve got to find this person and I want to thank her for her service,'” Newe recounted.

Alyson shared her story on the Folsom Chat Facebook page where it has received many likes and shares. She said she felt it was important to share “a feel-good story to start people’s week off,” and the positive responses have been “very touching.”

“The Sacramento region in general, we’re very kind, caring people,” Newe said. “And we don’t hear a lot about that.”

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