Phone in water? First aid for the first hour
Dropped your phone in water? What you do in the first hour decides whether it survives. Here's what helps, what makes it worse, and the myth to ignore.
Spilled a drink on your phone or dropped it down the sink? Don’t panic, but do move quickly. The damage from water isn’t usually the water itself — it’s corrosion that builds up over the following hours and days. What you do in the first hour matters more than anything.
Do this straight away
- Get it out of the water and turn it off. Don’t check if it still works — just power it down. A device that’s off is far less likely to short out.
- Don’t plug it in to charge. Putting power through a wet circuit is one of the quickest ways to kill it for good.
- Dry the outside and gently shake out water from the charging port and speakers.
- Leave it switched off. The urge to turn it on and check is strong. Resist it.
Skip the bag of rice
The rice trick is a myth. Rice doesn’t pull moisture out of a sealed device in any useful way, and rice dust can get into the ports. It mostly just delays getting real help while corrosion carries on inside.
What actually saves a water-damaged phone
The repair that works is a proper internal clean. We open the device, remove the corrosion with the right tools and solvents, and dry the board properly before testing. The sooner that happens, the better the odds — a phone brought in the same day stands a much better chance than one that sat in a drawer for a week.
At Tech Geek Feltham our liquid-damage service is a £45 deep clean plus any parts needed. Because corrosion can affect parts in ways that aren’t visible at first, liquid-damage repairs don’t carry a warranty except on any parts we replace — we’ll always be straight with you about the chances before we start.
Got a wet phone right now? Message us on WhatsApp or send us a message — or just bring it straight in. Speed is everything with water damage.