Cork student thanks 'hero' who retrieved phone from freezing waters of The Lough

A local man has been hailed a hero by a Cork student who has been reunited with her phone after dropping it in The Lough last week.

University College Cork (UCC) nursing student Bríd Byrne had visited The Lough with two friends on Thursday to see the winter wonderland in the snowy and icy conditions.

Having reached over the side of the lake to get some ice, her phone slipped from her jacket pocket and into the lake.

At first, the phone looked reachable from the surface but she soon realised that she would have to get into the water to retrieve it.

A series of unfortunate and then fortunate events pic.twitter.com/R1SlZ7Gihx

— Caitríona (@caitrionareddin) January 8, 2021

Speaking to The Echo, she said: “I thought I could reach this, took off my jacket, and went to get it and I was hyperextending but there was no hope at all.

“People started to circulate too to know what was going on. One person said you’re well able to get in there and get it so I said a couple of seconds in the water won't do me in any harm so I got in but it went up to nearly my chest and then I felt something else and got a bit of a fright so I got out and it was so cold,” she said.

One gentleman used his walking stick to try and fish out the phone but to no avail.

After 10 minutes, Bríd gave up, accepting that the phone would no longer work.

Flash forward a couple of hours, and Bríd got a call from her mother on her old phone telling her that a man had found her phone.

“She gave me his number so we decided to meet up the next day. It turns out that after all the commotion and everyone left, he got a branch of a tree and spent a good while trying to fish it out and he even put his hands in and asked me how I did it because it was Baltic. He had to get gloves and everything on and he eventually got it.

“This woman then told him he could use Siri to ring home and that’s how he contacted mam,” she said.

Bríd said that he was “a lovely man and an absolute hero”, revealing that his name is Luis Fernando and he works for Deliveroo.

“He was even so apologetic saying he was sorry there were a couple of scratches on the screen, but they’re barely noticeable,” she said.

She thanked him and said that he turned what had been the worst day into the best day.