14 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Straits Times
Oops!... I dropped it: Man retrieves woman's sunken phone from Sabah's waters in titanic effort
A quick-thinking local tour employee leapt into the sea off Semporna, after the female tourist accidentally dropped her phone in the water. PHOTO: PERHENTIAN_QALYNN/TIKTOK
It was not the Heart of the Ocean necklace, but a woman recently dropped her precious phone into the waters off Malaysia's Sabah, and someone went down and got it back for her.
Talk about being sent from above.
While it was not quite 'You jump, I jump', the man - a quick-thinking local tour employee - leapt into the sea off Semporna, after the female tourist accidentally fell in while trying to get onto a jetty from a boat, dropping her phone in the process.
In three viral TikTok clips posted on June 16, user @perhentian_qalynn filmed two women standing by the water's edge on the pier, with the phone's owner looking drenched and frazzled. The clips have garnered almost two million views in total.
The moment she loses her footing is not shown, but the caption in Malay gave the context: 'A strong wave hit, and she slipped before she could step fully onto the boat.'
The scream that followed turned every head on the dock, the caption added. While she managed to save her passport, her mobile phone took a dive - straight to the bottom of the sea.
'People were just watching as no one was diving in to retrieve it,' the caption added.
Up stepped the king of the woman's world, Ajiq, identified in the video's caption as an employee from a local tour company.
Wearing a snorkelling mask, he dived into the choppy, boat-filled waters in search of the sunken phone.
His first dive was in vain, but he did it again, this time breaking the water's surface again with the phone in hand, following a titanic effort.
Ecstatic, the woman waved her phone in the air like a trophy, shook it dry, and quickly wiped it down with a towel. She then thanked her soggy saviour profusely, and even said 'I love you' three times.
TikTok users were full of praise of the man.
'He didn't hesitate at all. That's a real gentleman,' wrote @aisyah87_m. 'Phones are expensive these days — this guy saved her trip!' said @shearaline.
The video ends with a message of thanks: 'When no one else moved, it was the diver who took the risk, diving in selflessly without expecting anything in return.'
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