Retired soldier finds and returns lost wallet, cellphone at bottom of Utah lake

SALT LAKE CITY, UT (WTVD) -- A retired soldier found a wallet and cellphone at the bottom of a lake; so he tracked down the owner and returned it.

"It's great that there are still kind and loving individuals who are honest, like Matthew," Evan Byington said.

Byington lost his phone and wallet more than two years ago when he was out ice fishing with a friend.

"It jumped off my lap and just went across and bang right through the hole," Byington recalled.

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He said the ice and water was so clear, he could see his wallet and phone sitting on the bottom of the lake. But there was no way he could get them back.

In the coming days, he canceled his credit card, got a new drivers license and purchased a new phone. He knew he'd never see those items that fell in the lake again.

But he was wrong.

Matthew Wesselink is a scuba instructor out of Colorado. He and his students were training in Deer Creek Reservoir when Wesselink found something.

"I drop down and right when I hit the bottom and 20 feet down there was a phone right in front of me."

He picked up the items and brought them into his boat. After drying the items out, he tracked down Byington on Facebook and informed him of the good news.

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Byington could've believe it.

Wesselink said it was nothing, just the right thing to do.

"I'm retired Army, so integrity is a big thing," he said.

The two men plan to meet in the next few weeks, so Wesselink can return the items in person.