Kevin Whitney loved his iPhone. Or at least he loved the countless, priceless family photos stored on it. So when the phone slipped out of his pocket and into 140 tons of grain on his farm in Oklahoma, he was understandably distraught. Luckily, people are nice in Japan.
Nine months after Whitney's accident, he received a call asking if he'd lost his phone.. He said he had, gave the man his address, and few days later, the iPhone that fell into the vat of grain was finally returned. A fairly common story, except the call Whitney had received came from Japan.
His iPhone had traveled with two million bushels of sorghum from Whitney's home town of Chickasha, Oklahoma, down the Mississippi, through the Panama Canal, and to the mill in Kashima, Japan. When he got it back, Whitney said there wasn't a scratch on it. All of his family photos were intact.
It's an extraordinary story—and it's probably true. But it's also a sobering reminder: Back up your phone, people. Back it up in the cloud, or back it up on your desktop. (Turning on Find My iPhone probably isn't a bad idea either.) Because if your phone ends up on a one-way trip to Japan, you probably won't be as lucky as Whitney.
Watch the local TV news segment about Whitney's lost iPhone here. [KFOR via Business Insider]