My one year old threw my phone in the toilet.
I put it in a bag of rice and because it is a stupid machine it decided to just turn itself on, thus probably frying its innards. It was my shiny new android that I really liked.
Today I had a little garage sale and made $30 that I put in my baby’s piggy bank and this is how she repays me! Well, kid, when you’re 14 I’m throwing your phone in the toilet. Or your Google brain chip or whatever.
I just dropped my Android in a public toilet a couple days ago and despite my most valiant efforts at rehabilitating it, it was destroyed. That rice thingy didn’t work.
I’ve given up on telling people that the rice usually doesn’t do anything. Unless you live in a really humid area, there isn’t enough moisture in the air and rice isn’t a good enough desiccant to really make a difference. Building a shrine to the flying spaghetti monster on your counter and leaving the phone on top of it will be just as effective. But, unlike other internet remedies, the rice thing doesn’t do any harm either. So if you are reading this, go ahead. Stick your phone in the rice. If it works again you can tell everyone that the rice did it, just like everyone else does.
The only important thing is that you remove the battery IMMEDIATELY. Unfortunately with some phones this isn’t possible. After that just let the phone dry out on its own. The phone might recover and it might not. Exactly where the water goes inside the phone, the conductivity of the water (based on its mineral content) and luck all play a part in whether the phone will work again or not.
And if you are in a very humid area (like say Florida or Louisiana) then do use the rice, or any other desiccant you can find. It won’t make a difference to the likelihood of the phone surviving but in a really humid area like that it will help the phone dry out a bit faster.
Shortly after my wife got a shiny new iPhone to replace her old and busted BlackBerry, our younger daughter (about 18 months old at the time) walked into the bedroom and announced “Mummy phone - wet!”
No joy using the rice. I’d agree if you can’t pull the battery you are almost definitely out of luck.
Good to know that rice doesn’t really work. I tried to get the battery out, but it wasn’t easy and my baby was pretty pissed at me for taking away the cell phone so I was a little distracted and gave up. I suppose I’ll turn it on tomorrow and find out if I need a new one. As is often the case with parenting, I get to learn a lesson the hard-but-it-could-have-been-worse way.
One day they will develop a bio-recognition safety measure against theft, nosy people, and children. Anyone but its owner touches it and they get zapped.
One day. In the meantime we have to take what happens with a sense of grace so as not to whack offending parties in the forehead.
You should watch HowToBasic, a channel on YouTube. Once you do, you will realize that your child has not done anything significant.
I mean that guy uses his toilet to cook! 
I like to use alcohol in these situations. Then afterwards, get some rubbing alcohol and use liberally. My first digital camera didn’t take well to rainstorm use, and a weeks worth of drying near a baseboard didn’t help. A little alcohol later and it was working again.
My GoPro2 had a drippy case-less excursion that alcohol also improved.
Sorry to hear about your phone. There was a post on tumblr a few weeks ago where someone detailed how her mom accidentally dropped her iphone in the toilet. She fished it out and yelled, "Siri, I dropped you in the toilet, what do I do?’ Apparently Siri replied, “You have 28 events in July. That’s a lot!” and then died which I find poetic in a strange yet prosaic way.
First you’ll want to microwave your phone on defrost 20% power for 18 minutes and 20 seconds. Then place it in the oven at 325 degrees for 4 minutes, turn over for another 4 minutes, then turn a 3rd time for a final 4 minutes. Remove and let cool at room temperature for an hour. Toss in a mix of 1/3 rice, 1/3 phone, 1/3 popcorn kernels (ratios by weight not volume) into a hot-air popcorn popper and run it until all the popcorn has popped and the rice is slightly brown. Discard the popcorn and place the phone and the browned rice into a rice cooker. Don’t add water though. Just the dry, browned rice and the phone, and leave it in the rice cooker for a half hour on high power. Remove the phone, discard the rice, and place phone into a food dehydrator set to “jerky” temperatures and leave it there overnight.
Then throw it away because it’s never going to work again, it was never going to work, and also… GROSS toilet phone, but at least you had fun for an hour or two there doing things to it that you never would do to a working phone!
I whistle “It’s a Small World” when my other half has doused her phone. It’s just as effective as rice, and doesn’t waste any food!
Was it an iPhone? Cause your kid’s pretty smart if it was.
So, have a glass of wine then use rubbing alcohol? I think first I’ll try drewtwo99’s complicated voodoo plan, then the rubbing alcohol, then maybe more wine. Because this morning it doesn’t turn on or acknowledge me in any way. Good night, sweet phone.
It was an HTC something, a little over $100. I think I’ll get a junker Kyocera or something for about $75. I use Virgin Mobile no-contract plan.
Man, my kid is fast though. I was trying to rid the house of two spiders this morning and she took the opportunity to dump water all over herself. Into the rice!
This crazy-pants phase does eventually end, by the way. By the time she’s two she’ll be a wise little sage compared to how she is now. You’ll be able to let her play by herself in the next room. Hang on. It’ll happen.
I ran my iPhone 5 through an entire wash cycle in the washing machine (front loader if it matters) over 2 months ago. It still worked but you could see a lot of water behind the screen. I turned it off to try to keep it from frying itself and put it in a bag of rice. This did not seem to help a great deal. Then I bought a box of silica gel crystals (not the packets, but i suppose that might work as well) for drying flowers at the craft store. I put the phone in a Tupperware container with the silica gel, and in a few days all the water (that i could see - i didn’t open up the phone) was gone.
After a couple days, the mute button stopped working and the sound would keep turning itself off. I put the phone back in the silica gel overnight, and everything worked again. That happened one more time maybe a couple weeks later. I put the phone in the silica gel overnight and it’s been working fine ever since.
See, that’s why people say front loaders don’t immerse your clothes in water.
This is why I’m disappointed that wearing your phone in a belt pouch is considered dorky. The only alternative is to put it in your pocket, where it rests uncomfortably, is difficult to fish out, and easily falls out and into the toilet or left behind on the train. In what way is that preferable?
pouches help prevent butt dialing too.
Dorky or not, my phone rides in its little belt pouch.
And I carry a Mini-Maglite in a belt case too.
Dork? Sure, but I’ve got a working phone and I can find things in the dark.
What?! No pouch for the leatherman? 
I work for a remanufacturer of cell phones that deals in insurance claims for them (we get the wrecked phones from the claim when applicable). Although I don’t work out in the production area, I’ve heard horrer stories.
Follow what e_c_g says s/he knows what s/he’s talking about. Ironically, phones with internal (non-removable) batteries tend to fare better with “damage caused by liquid”.