Kicker: Fishing for memories

NICK EICHER, HOST:Coral Amayi was tubing down the Colorado River for a little whitewater rafting adventure. But Smelter Rapids was too much, and in an instant, the rafter became a swimmer. She did make it to safety. But

CORAL AMAYI: My camera was missing. I remember getting back to my boyfriend's house and like inconsolably crying and upset.

EICHER: The audio from Fox 31 Denver. She’s telling a story that’s more than a decade-old. That camera had graduation pics. Bachelorette party. A friend’s wedding. Gone, gone, gone.

Well, fast forward to last week. A fisherman was walking along the same river about a mile downstream, and what does he see? An Olympus digital camera sticking up out of the sand. Spencer Greiner had the catch of the day. He takes it home, pries out the SD card

SPENSER GREINER: I plugged it into the, into the computer and it read it immediately and I'm like, oh, cool. Let’s see what treasures are on this memory card.

EICHER: He posts some of the photos online, and it didn’t even take half an hour to match up. And for Amayi, distant memories have come back to life.

AMAYI: I was like dancing in the bathroom and was like, who am I gonna tell? I need to like, tell this to somebody.

EICHER: It’s The World and Everything in It.

They say a photo is worth a thousand words, and this photo collection now has a much more interesting backstory.

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