We love our phones but sometimes the unfortunate happens and we drop them, even worse, we drop them in a pool of water.

As much as most times it’s by accident, water damage on phones is increasingly becoming common and this would explain why manufacturers are spending more to ensure devices are waterproofed – albeit this has so far been a flagship phone feature.

For those with mid-range and entry-level devices and even some flagships, it’s prudent to be familiar with ways of saving your device in the case it falls in the water.

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We’ve curated a list of steps that you should follow and maybe, just maybe, your phone could live again.

After your phone gets water damage, do not do the following:

• Do not switch on the phone. This could cause more damage as electrical components don’t play well with water.
• Do not attempt to charge the phone or connect it to a USB cable.
• Don’t press any buttons on the phone as this could push water further into the phone.
• Don’t shake or blow (even using a blower or blow drier) into the device either, for the same reason as above.
• Do not attempt to heat up the phone.

Now that we know what not to do, here are steps you should follow to try and save your phone:

• Remove everything that is user-removable, i.e., the battery, the back cover, the case but don’t attempt to remove anything that requires unscrewing.
• Use a paper towel to dry out the parts you’ve removed and the phone itself.
• If you have one, use a small vacuum cleaner to suck off water from the phone.
• Leave the phone to dry – keep it inside a bag of rice for two to three days. We use rice because rice is good at absorbing humidity in the air.

We know this is a hard task but try as much as possible to keep stay away from your phone for three days – have some discipline.

If after the three days your phone doesn’t come on or you see some weird behaviour while using it, we recommend taking it to a service centre and let the experts do it.