I have a friend (seriously!) who dropped a cell phone in a pool. The results so far don’t look promising. Putting in the battery causes the keypad to light up—and not go off. The display doesn’t light up at all, and nothing makes any sounds (like keys). What is the chance that it is catastrophically damaged versus the possibility that maybe with enough time and heat, it will dry out internally and go back functioning?
The only suggestion I can give is to take it apart and put it in uncooked rice for a day or so. The rice should pull out any moisture. If that doesn’t work, than I think a new phone is in order.
This is coming from a person who dropped her cell in a snowbank and found it 8 hours later. It still worked.
I speak from experience - I dropped my phone into a pool a few years ago. As soon as I got it out I took out the battery, opened up the phone as much as possible, and just let it air out for a few days. When I put the battery in I turned it on and everything worked just fine for another 6 months (at which point a puppy got a hold of it).
I talked to a few phone techs after to see if my phone beat the odds. They all tell me that if you pull the battery and let it dry you have a good chance at keeping the phone. But most people put the battery in and try to turn it on immediately which just fries it. So at this point - you may get lucky but I wouldn’t bet on it.
The biggest mistake was trying to use it at all before fully drying it out. It was probably screwed anyway if it was turned on when submerged, but it might have had a slim chance.
You are friends with my son? Apparently what your friend should to do is immediately call his parents and and explain how he needs his phone for his job. Then he should let it drop that there is a newer version of his phone available for only a few dollars more.
That’s how I thought everybody dealt with dropped phones. Was I misled?
Yes, it was a mistake to try and fire it up. But I had this happen to me, I fired it up a few times (it never fully worked), and my phone tech guy was able to dry it out and getting it working. He used a hair dryer.
I dropped my cell phone in a large bowl of water once. Following the advice of a friend, I took the battery out and dried the phone and battery as best I could with a hair dryer set on “cool” and “low”, then I sealed them both up in a plastic baggie (quart size is what I used) full of uncooked rice and let them set for 24 hours. The phone has worked perfectly ever since.
Electronic devices will often survive immersion in water. It is very important to immediately remove the battery, though. Leaving the battery in, even with the phone turned off, can kill it if there is water inside the case.
The suggestion of putting the phone in uncooked rice is copied all over the internet. Rice will absorb moisture out of the air, but really, unless you live in a particularly humid environment, the rice isn’t going to make any practical difference at all. People don’t like to do nothing, though, so despite the fact that just leaving the phone out on the counter to dry out for the same amount of time would probably have exactly the same effect, people insist on putting their phones in rice. Then, when the phone works, they go AHA! It must have been the rice! The one good thing about the rice treatment is that unlike other internet remedies, the rice doesn’t do any harm. So, if it makes you feel better, go ahead and stick your phone in rice. If the phone works when you are done, you can be one of the many people falsely believing that the rice was responsible for saving your phone.
If you do happen to live in a very humid area though, putting the phone in an enclosed container with rice will help, since the rice will lower the moisture content of the air in the container and will allow the water in the phone to evaporate more quickly. It should be noted that while any desiccant will help the phone dry out a bit more quickly, this will not have any effect at all on whether or not the phone survives. The damage is done while the phone has power. Once you remove the power source (the battery), you just have to wait for everything to dry out before you can use it again and hope for the best.
I wouldn’t recommend a hair dryer. They produce static electricity which can damage your phone. The case of the phone will protect it somewhat against static discharge, but still, a hair dryer is definitely not a good idea. You could end up killing a phone that would have otherwise survived its attempted drowning.
Sticking the phone in a warm (not hot) oven will help it dry faster. If you turn up the heat too much though you’ll damage the phone.
One thing I’ve seen repeated on the internet is to stick the phone in the freezer. DO NOT DO THIS. The water inside will freeze, and since water expands when it freezes it can seriously damage the components inside the phone. Plus, when the phone thaws out, the ice will turn back into water and you’ll be right back where you started with water still in your phone. This internet remedy is REALLY BAD. Don’t try it.
Seriously, just leaving the phone out somewhere where it can dry out with the battery removed is about the best thing you can do for it.
Was this a large *porcelain *bowl, by any chance? :o
A suggestion for someone trying rice: put the phone in a sock, or cheesecloth, or something, to prevent tiny bits of rice from finding their way into nooks and crannies in the phone.
If you’ve got a clothes dryer with a shelf for things like sneakers (ours has such a shelf, which we don’t have installed for normal loads)… maybe you could put the phone on that, and put the dryer on air fluff. Air blowing, no heat.
Mmm…could be. 
(Hey, at least I lucked out and it was clean at the time. :p)
And with regard to the effectiveness of rice, I was thinking that sealing the bag the rice is in was in large part the reason for the effectiveness of this method as the rice would absorb whatever moisture happened to be in the air inside the bag, thus creating an ultra-dry environment which would draw out the moisture from inside the phone.
I don’t know if that theory is correct or not, but I did the let the phone set out for a couple of days at first to let it air out and the phone only got to the point where it would come on for a short while and then shut back down. I heard about the blow-dryer/rice technique from a friend, and, after trying it, the phone worked.
Yep, you’re probably skrooed. Putting the battery in when it’s still wet almost certainly caused a short.
Don’t feel bad, many people do this. It’s pretty much my standard answer when people ask me to look at their (water damaged) phones. If it got wet and you tried to power it up unsuccessfully, it’s a paperweight.
Some form of desiccant and/or forced air to blow out the water are the way to go. At my old job we also used circuit board cleaner sprays to “displace” the water, but you have to be careful about the plastic case/components as some of these sprays can damage them.
Actually, I tried turning my cell phone on right away and it came on and then immediately went back off again. I tried it a second time and it did the same thing. It was only after that that I tried a couple of days’ airing out followed by the blow-dryer/rice thing. The phone’s still working fine a year later, and with its original battery, too.