Liquid Damaged iPhone 5 - My Story

I know that nothing is more horrid than having your precious iDevice (in my case iPhone 5) take a dump in water or liquids.

And yesterday, it has happened to me.

I was on a family visit in a city near my home town, when I noticed that my Ice Tea bottle with Nestea was flooding my purse where my iPhone 5 was in. So I took out the phone like mad, scrubbed everything off, rushed to turn it off and it didn't turn off. The touchscreen was irresponsive as well, so I started to panic. I held down the home and power button, but the phone just kept rebooting. AAARGH. The single thing about the iPhone that REALLY sucks is that you can't take the battery out in case of such an emergency

After a few tries to shut the thing off, another horrid thing happened: The screen just went white. Home, power button and mute switch still worked. I lost it at this stage. The screen was flickering and showing black spots with purple tints, but I didn't care at this point. I went for the train.

At home, I took out the SIM card and shook off any water, but there was none. Even the water damage indicators appeared to be fine. So I took the blow-dryer and tried to dry the phone inside. No luck.

Then I put it on a charge to see if it would respond. But it just vibrated. The screen still kept flickering.

So I decided to "google it". So I googled "iPhone 5 water damage" and found tons of entries from peoiple advising what to do in such an emergency.
One of the advices said something along the lines of "Don't put your phone on a charge, it will short circuit" or "Don't blow-dry your iPhone".

My heart sank!!!

Then I found a website of a phone repair facility neat me that specifically advised putting the phone in a tupperware full of rice overnight and then bring the phone over in the next day. So I submerged the phone in rice and left it there overnight. I couldn't sleep.

So today I brought the iPhone 5 to the repair shop and the guy took the IMEI, serial number and everything, typed in something and told me that I'll hear back from them tomorrow.

Right now I'm in a state of panic as I did the most idiotic things in the state of panic I was in, and I'm so worried that the phone will be toast. I just got the phone on Christmas on a 2 year contract with O2 (one European provider)

What do I do....

barkomatic said:

I think you've done all you can--accidents happen. Don't beat yourself up. Did you have Applecare+ on your iPhone? In the U.S. at least if you do then you could take it to Apple and they will replace it for a $49 deductible in cases of accidental damage. Not sure about how that works in Europe.

Even if you don't have Applecare, then Apple will still replace it for a greater fee--but usually that's much less than the cost of a new out of contract iPhone.

I assume you don't have Applecare on it--since you seem to imply that you've taken it to a 3rd party repair shop. If you picked a good one then they will use genuine parts--if not they will be knock-offs.

Good luck -- and consider Applecare the next time. I'm a little accident prone myself.

Click to expand...

Don't have AppleCare -___- I really should've taken my own advice and book an AppleCare protection plan ._.

But well, damage has been done now. All I can hope is that the damage will not be too great... If it's just a problem with the LCD and the SIM slot, it will be fine.

Especially since the water damage indicators on the sim card and the dock connector seemed fine ._. No reds.

Mr Kram said:

Stuff happens. My iPhone 4 got a little wet when a waitress dripped some water in it while refilling my glass. Phone worked fine, except the ear piece didn't work. Took it to apple out of warranty and was charged $199 to replace.

Click to expand...

but the ear piece can be easily replaced?

It really irks me that the phone wouldn't even turn off after the damage happened. That was actually my first instinct, but when the screen went blank, I just lost it

UPDATE:

I phoned up Apple today since the technician said that the phone is dead -__-

The guy on the other end of the line from AppleCare didn't dismiss my case even though I didn't have AppleCare, which is great. So I told him the whole story with the water damage, the ice tea and stuff, and he was saddened. He came back a few minutes later and told me that Apple will replace the iPhone on the house, and at this moment I cried. Really. I cried.

So tomorrow the UPS guy will ring and take my damaged iPhone, so I can get a refurbished one

MrMacMack said:

This is being done at no charge?

Click to expand...

Yeah. I can't believe it either...but that's how it happened.