How I Rescued My Water-Logged Cell Phone

I shook out all of the water I could, and put each part in a separate pocket, thinking that some of the moisture might be absorbed by my clothing. I carried the cell phone itself open in my hand, hoping that the air and sun would help to dry it out.

Since we were deep in the woods, I was in a hurry to get back to my car where I could put everything in the back window where it could get more direct sun and less humidity.

Needless to say, the outing was shortened. All I could think about was that I had probably completely ruined the phone.

It is a Motorola V176 that I bought through my cell phone carrier NET10. It has a good reputation for reliability, but I wasn't sure about its ability to withstand the dunking.

Since a pharmacist is also a chemist, I took some solace in the fact that the Catawba River was running cold and clear where this had all happened, so there shouldn't be a lot of minerals or dissolved contaminants to worry about.

When we got home, I put all the pieces on a chair in the patio room where they could get direct sun for most of the day. I got on the Internet and found out that there had been varying experiences as to recovery possibilities under these circumstances. I also found out that there is a little dot that turns red and invalidates any warranty when it has been submersed. Yep, it was red.

After about twelve hours -- I couldn't stand it anymore -- I put the battery and SIM card back in to see if it would work. The phone software loaded up, but it didn't show any reception.

I was afraid that I might have ruined the antenna somehow. Indicating more faith than I really had, I removed the battery and put it all back out in the sun again, hoping that I had not screwed up any chance of it recuperating on its own by doing what I had just done.

With a sense of apprehension, I put the battery and SIM card back in about a day later. Everything seemed to work fine. All the functions seemed to be normal.

I was still worried about plugging it into the charger. It might be that the current produced by the charger could ruin something that the low voltage from the battery hadn't. I let it sit there for about another day. I plugged in the charger, the light came on and nothing sizzled.

That was several weeks ago. I am certainly happy that everything seems to be as it should.

This turned out to be an inexpensive lesson. It could have been a lot worse.

The take home lesson here is that I need to secure the phone on a lanyard or in a deep pocket before I head back to the river. If I plan to be in the river I will have to put it in a "baggy" or a watertight container of some sort.

Thankfully,

Bob Diamond R.Ph

PS. Somehow I lost 400 minutes while I was recharging the phone during this process. I called NET10 on their customer service line. They replaced the 400 minutes, no questions asked.

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