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Trying to get a cell or mobile phone to work after dropping it in the pool, sink, or even washing it is a time honoured tradition that brings sadness to us all as we have all been in the situation before where there is no hope, but you pray to the cell phone gods that they will take pity and after an hour of drying it will magically work again. There is hope, trust me, after swimming with three phones, and washing another one, I know how to clean a phone and make it work.

First it depends on what type of phone you have, the phone that went through my washing machine went all the way through, but it was a cheaper flip phone and tended to be a tank when taking damage. It did beat my washer, and the dryer, but after charging it still worked, except for the small problem of water in the screen. The screen still worked, it just had the imminent threat of shortcircuiting, I opened the back up, took the battery and sim card out and laid the phone out in the sun for a day. Although it helped alittle, it didn't evaporate all the water, therefore after two years with the phone I got a free upgrade through my cell phone service provider. Although I did get a new phone, my washed one was still working perfectly; proving that bigger phones take more damage, and are nearly impervious to water damage.

This second phone was a razor, This was my third dropping in the pool and the only one successfully recovered. As many know the razor is an extremely thin phone, varily fragile and especially vulnerable to water. In mid air jumping into the pool, I realized my fate was sealed, with my new phone in a zippered pocket, it was impossible for me to reach it in time, but with only about thirty seconds to a minute underwater, I hoped it would be possible to resuccitate the razor. I immediately got the phone out of the pocket hopped out of the pool and made a dash for my towel, conviniently located across the pool. The towel removed the immediate moisture collecting on the outside as well as what was around the battery and sim card once removed from the phone. With the back opened and all immediate moisture gone, I left it on the towel/chair I was sitting in to have a little sunbathing. I was at the pool for five hours in 100 degree heat, no clouds in sight. When I went home that night for an early dinner, I plugged the phone into the charger, after putting together the pieces, and charged it for about an hour. At this time I pressed the power button and the revived screen sputtered back to life after a miraculous save. I am proud to also say I am still currently using the phone with no problems since I jumped into the pool with it a year ago.

Although these are specific examples, these two show how your phone type matters in the urgency of the problem, although you might not exactly fit the circumstances, these outlines show a general idea of what to do in the case of a cell phone getting wet, but please by all means even if you have a tank of a cell phone, get it out of the water ASAP, because the less time it has in the water, the higher it's survival chance is, and that goes for all cell phones.

Learn more about this author, J. Merrill.
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