[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6KNEe_2qDw]
If you’ve ever dropped your smartphone, you’ll know very well that awful sinking feeling as you watch it fall toward the ground, your reflexes not quite sharp enough to rescue it on the way down.
But dropping it while traveling on a roller coaster at a speed of 80 mph? Well, that’s something else entirely.
It’s exactly what happened just recently to someone at the PortAventura theme park about 50 miles west of Barcelona, Spain.
Incredibly, though, rider Samuel Kempf, seated a few rows behind the owner of the dropped iPhone X, managed to grab it in the split second that it appeared above his head as the ride hurtled along. Even better, the bizarre incident was captured on camera.
“Long story short, I caught it,” Kempf told New Zealand website 1NewsNow, adding that the roller coaster was “moving at over 130 kph (80 mph) and was once Europe’s tallest and fastest coaster.”
The Kiwi said the phone’s owner was “super surprised and happy” when he realized his phone had been saved, adding, “He gave me a big hug and said he was going to buy the on-ride video for me.”
The video (above), which has quickly become a huge hit on YouTube, shows Kempf raising his arms aloft, enjoying the thrill of the ride as it speeds along the rails. Suddenly, the iPhone appears in the air close to his ahead. Spotting it, he instinctively reaches out, and with his arm at full stretch somehow manages to make a clean catch.
The rest of the ride is pretty much Kempf celebrating his remarkable feat, holding the phone aloft in jubilation. Good job he didn’t drop it.
There are occasions, of course, where smartphones are deliberately dropped from great heights in an effort to test their durability. Occasionally, however, these so-called “drop tests” can be taken to the extreme. Take Chinese phone maker Vivo. It recently tested the toughness of its Iqoo handset by letting it fall 31,540 meters — around 103,000 feet — from a high-altitude balloon.
More publicity stunt than serious effort at testing the strength of the phone’s build, the Iqoo appeared to survive the fall as the display, albeit with a few scratches, was shown working soon after it was recovered.