Slight Emergency

[lls_mutant]

For all you moms and other electrical savvy people out there:

My son just dropped a battery operated toy into a pitcher of water. Complete submersion. What's the safest way to deal with this? The toy is now sitting in a sink, no water in the sink, well out of a 1 year old's reach.

Thanks. :P

Comments

[misscake]

The main concern at this point is leaking battery acid. Let it dry and carefully open up the battery compartment (with gloves if you see brown gunk leaking out). If it's clear, you should be able to just let it air dry completely. But if there were electrical components inside, they might well be fried. :(

[shaggydogstail.livejournal.com]

Remove the batteries and just leave it to dry out. If you're lucky, it might even work again when it's dry! (Um, you're going to want to test that yourself, of course.)

Don't worry too much, and try to be grateful it was only a pitcher of water and not the toilet bowl. ;D

[topaz7.livejournal.com]

Yes, just take out batteries and dry it out. Hopefully it will be as good as new, eventually. And cleaner, too!

I put my cell phone through the wash once, and after about a month of drying out, it worked again. So it's possible.

[medicinal-mirth.livejournal.com]

Have had this happen many times. Carefully remove and toss the batteries and let the toy dry out completely. Try fresh batteries, and maybe it'll work. I've been lucky a couple of times, not so lucky a couple other times.

[busaikko]

* dittos the other electrical advice and adds: *

Making sure that said 1-yr old cannot see the toy again (until it is operational) is very important! 'Out of sight, out of mind', especially if the toy might need to be binned. Kids forget pretty easily (Exhibit A: mangled frog-shaped calculator that went through the dryer. Binned in silence, RIP, no screaming yet...)