Since I’ve been talking a lot about cell phones lately I figured I’d share some knowledge I gave to a co-worker that saved her Blackberry the other day. I got a call on Monday from Kristen, She apparently had dropped her Blackberry in the bath tub while it was filling with water. The Cellphone was lifeless with no display or LED lights.

I instructed her to remove the battery asap, and use a blow dryer on both the device and battery until they were dry. After doing this for a few minutes, she put the battery back in her phone, tried to power it on and nothing happened, still dead. So at this point I told her to either leave it out in the sun in attempt to remove all the moisture form inside the battery/device, try a replacement battery and hope the actually Blackberry is not damaged or there was one last thing she could try that I recently just learned. Apparently leaving a soaking wet cell phone in a bowl of uncooked rice over night would suck out all the moisture and bring life back to the once lifeless cell phone.

Since there wasn’t any sun light available, she proceeded with the bowl of uncooked rice trick. The next morning her phone powered on and everything appeared as it was prior to the dip into the bath tub. She was thrilled and thanked me a million times.

Obviously if you are bringing your cellphone anywhere where you could potentially drop it into water, just be extra careful. In the unlikely event you do happen to submerge your cell phone into water and it no longer works, I would try the following steps before spending the money on a replacement.

• Remove the back of the phone and battery right away.
• Try to get both the device and battery dry as possible with a cloth.
• Use a blow dryer to remove the moisture that may have gotten inside.
• Leave your cellphone in a bowl of uncooked rice overnight.
• Leave the battery and the device with the back off out in sun light for an extended period of time.
• Try a replacement battery before replacing the device. Hopefully you have a friend with the same phone or maybe your provider has a shop nearby that would let you use a battery while in the store.

Tags: blackberry