Video: Data Recovery – CA Wildfire Rescue

In October of 2017, California suffered a number of devastating wildfires. DriveSavers responded by offering free data recovery service for devices damaged by the wildfires.
Watch the video above to experience the story of one iPhone, lost in the fires when a rescue team was transporting horses and livestock out of the fire zone.

Transcript:

DriveSavers Data Recovery – CA Wildfire Rescue

In October of 2017, California suffered a number of devastating wildfires.

DriveSavers responded by offering free data recovery service for devices damaged by the wildfires. Many of the devices we received were virtually unrecognizable.

Senior Deputy Probation Officer Matt Murphy is a volunteer with Marin Search and Rescue. As he and his team were transporting horses and livestock out of the fire zone, he lost his iPhone.

Matt Murphy: We were in a caravan of trucks and trailers looking to move animals out of the fire zone. I suspect I was chatting and leaning against the trailer. I put it down on the trailer fender, got distracted, got called to move out, and pulled out. It got left there. And months later, it turned up. Someone sent it out. It doesn’t look like it was run over. It looks like it was stomped on. The outside case was all fractured off. The face was all scratched up. The button area was fully torn out, broken up, exposed. You could actually see the hardware inside the phone from there. Mostly it was contacts that, you know… The county easily gave me a new phone right away, but I don’t have all those contacts that I had. Being 33 years in the department and the contacts I’ve made, there were a lot of names and numbers there that were pretty important to me.

DriveSavers engineers worked to disassemble Deputy Murphy’s iPhone. They gained access to the memory chip that contained his critical data and were able to retrieve all of the files.

Matt Murphy: Well, I want to thank you folks a lot. I very, very, very much appreciate you guys doing what you did. Having been referred here and then having that success, it definitely was just…We just put your name out there more. Thank you very much.

Wet, dropped, crushed or burnt, We can save it!®