Water damage can be far more deadly than you might think.  We have many, many horror stories of seemingly tiny amounts of water in weird and unusual places and times completely killing a phone, frying the computer 'brains' of the handset.

One particular situationwas a female friend simply riding her bicycle in London, with her phone in her rucksack on her back.  It started raining and within minutes she got off at her destiniation - it was only a6 minute bike ride in total.  When she arrived her phone was completely deada and after the best attempts did not ressurect.  She had to get a replacement phone.

Now, some phones can be more resilient to a bit of water damage than others.  But the trouble is you just never know.

The best steps to take are as follows...

IMMEDIATELY get the phone out of the water or wet envirnment.  The longer it is under the more chance that it will not come back to life.

If it is off DO NOT turn it on or try to turn it on.  This will pass the electrical current through the phone and across the vital 'brains'.  If there is moisture in there it is then likely to short-circuit and fry itself. Dont turn it on.

Take it apart immediately, take off the battery, take out the SIM card and put them in a warm dry place - not on a radiator but near one is ok - 30cm away or so.

Leave it like that for 48 hours.

DO NOT turn it on within 48 hours.  See above - if it is still slightly wet yo will fry it.

After 48 hours, put it all back together.  Then turn it on.  If it will not turn on you have a very expensive paperweight. If it does turn on watch over the next few hours and days for faults like screen flicker and the phone software working in strange ways.

So sometime, just sometimes your phone *might* survive.  But usually water damage will completely kill it - or will render it largely useless for example by making half the screen not work - or the phone menu system no longer work - at which point you need to get a new phone.

This is why you need to be protected with a water damage cover within your phone insurance