I was on holiday in Diani, Kenya, taking pictures in the ocean when a big wave knocked my phone out of my hands. I tried to grab it, but more waves kept pushing it away. I searched for it that night with a security guard when the tide was low, but no luck. I assumed it was gone for good.
The next day, a staff member from my resort told me that a kid found my phone while crab spotting the night before—just ten minutes before I had gone looking. They charged it but couldn’t unlock it, so they used my wallpaper as an identifier.
When I met them, they asked me to describe my wallpaper (it was a picture of me and my boyfriend), and when I did, they took me to my phone. I was in shock. I put it in rice for a few hours (even though people say it doesn’t help, it has worked for me before), then charged it using the emergency override feature since it detected water.
Three days later, the phone is working perfectly. The speaker was muffled at first because of sand, but it’s fine now. I was pretty close to the shore when it happened, so while the phone wasn’t too deep, it was underwater for at least an hour and a half during high tide. I can’t believe it survived.
Glad your phone made it, but rice isn’t actually the best way to dry out a phone. It doesn’t remove moisture effectively, and the dust from the rice can actually make things worse. A better option is to rinse it with fresh water (especially if it was in saltwater), then let it air dry or use silica gel packets. Saltwater is really corrosive, so even if it’s working now, I’d keep an eye on it over the next few weeks.
@Fenix
I actually did rinse it with fresh water first, then dried it off before putting it in rice. It’s working fine now, no more water detection messages when I charge it. I think I got really lucky this time.
@Shane
Rice doesn’t actually do anything. The iPhone 15 Pro has an IP68 rating, so it can survive in water for a while. That’s probably why it’s still working.
@Fenix
I once crashed my DJI drone into a lake and put it in a bucket of rice. It wouldn’t fly at first, but after a few days in the rice, it worked fine again.
Flor said: @Fenix
I once crashed my DJI drone into a lake and put it in a bucket of rice. It wouldn’t fly at first, but after a few days in the rice, it worked fine again.
A well-ventilated area would have worked better than rice. Your drone survived, but probably not because of the rice.
