Comrades runner returns lost cellphone within hours

IN a time when crime awareness is at its height and cellphone and general theft is at its peak, a Glenwood resident was over the moon when her cellphone was returned by a good Samaritan yesterday.

According to Georgia Le Clos, she ‘stupidly’ left her phone on the roof of her car as she rushed to work on Wednesday morning. “I drove out my gate in Manning Road and only once well into Cato Road did I realise I didn’t have my phone, so I rushed home and checked everywhere but couldn’t find it, even after dialling the number. It was then that I realised I’d left it on my car roof when putting my stuff into the car, so I retraced my route, but it was nowhere to be seen,” she explained.

When Le Clos got to her Pinetown office she tried to call the phone once more, but by then it had gone to voicemail and she was ‘gutted’. “My whole life is on my phone, and I hadn’t backed up my video clips and photographs of my toddler and son. That was the main thing that uspet me, my daughter has just started walking and my son is 10, I had so many pictures of her and his sporting achievements so I was panicking about all the memories I’d lost and my contacts for business as I am a rep,” she said.

Resigned after the realisation that all was lost, she decided to go to her service provider to blacklist the phone and get a new SIM card, but then her office phone rang and it was the children’s nanny. “She told me a man had found my phone and called to ask where I could pick it up. I was still at work, so I gave his details to my dad, who met him at the church he volunteers at to collect the phone. He gave my dad the phone and my dad had it for me when I returned from work.

“I can’t believe you still get people like this, especially after hearing about a cellphone theft at our pizza place down the road from my home. With all the crime and doom and gloom stories we hear every day I just wanted to share my good news. I really am amazed by Sanele’s kindness and honesty,” she said.

When Berea Mail contacted the good Samaritan, Nkosithandile Sanele Mvelase, he modestly said he found it on the road near the children’s home while on his morning trip to work. “I opened the phone and I saw it was a business phone, it looked like if she lost her phone and her whole life would be disturbed, so I thought I’d try to get hold of her. I saw missed calls and then her dad called and I told him that I had the phone.

“I am glad to have helped her, because she was very excited when she phoned me,” he added.

Le Clos and Sanele met for the first time this morning and greeted each other with a big hug. “I knew he was a good person because he returned my phone but I realised today he is just amazing when we met. He is a volunteer at a church and a runner too and runs from Glenwood to work in Gale Street because he’s training for Comrades, and that’s when he found my phone.”

On a lighter note, Le Clos says the lesson for her was to always back up her cellphone.