A family thought their recorded memories of a trip to the Jersey Shore were lost – swept away forever thanks to the crash of a wave – but thanks to a Good Samaritan, a tenacious detective and NBC10's Ted Greenberg's report, the family will soon have their camera back.
“I thought it was swallowed into the sea forever,” said Eileen Chwatek. "Just that it turned up is amazing."
Chwatek's son Ken lost the GoPro camera full of memories in the surf off Cape May while the family was on vacation on Aug. 24.
"When i lost it, I was kind of like, I’m never seeing that again,” said Ken.
“I thought it was like one of those messages you put in a bottle and that someone in China has the GoPro by now,” said Eileen.
The camera actually turned up a half mile away and turned over to Cape May Police where the camera sat unclaimed for months until Det. Joseph Walker came upon the camera during an audit of unclaimed items in the police department’s property room.
“When we recovered it, we had assumed someone would claim it as property,” said Walker.
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Thanks to NBC10's story that aired Thursday night and quickly spread across social media, someone in New York recognized the Basking Ridge, New Jersey family. That person emailed Eileen to let her know that the GoPro Hero 3+ cam featuring a series of videos turned up.
Cape May Police planned to mail the camera back to the grateful Chwateks.
“I can’t wait to see it and relive those wonderful memories of last summer,” said Eileen.
