iPhone in a house fire……. the outcome?

I’m a firefighter, there’s no secret there. If anything goes to a fire scene there’s a pretty good chance it’s going to get beaten up pretty badly. (again, no secret)

The main reason I didn’t get an original iPhone was because it was just too expensive, my portable devices get horribly mistreated.

I have an iPhone 3G, it’s naked, all but a screen protector. This surprises some people, I figure I’ll give it a darned good testing and see exactly what it’ll take.

Well, this morning my iPhone got it pretty good.

I responded with my fire company to assist at a house fire. My iPhone got thrown in the pocket in my bunker gear pants like I usually do and got to work.

Overhauling a house after a fire is a nasty, nasty job. There’s water and lots of nastiness everywhere.

Well, I got back to the station, put my hand in my pocket and found my poor 3G treading water in a pool of nasty water. Firefighting gear is good for keeping water out and in!

Of course my heart sank as I rescued my phone to inspect the damage.

I set it out for a few minutes to help take care of some stuff to get the engine back in service and came back to it to find blotchy marks on the protector where the water had dried ovv but found the phone otherwise unscathed.

I did find a couple of issues when I started to use it though. It liked to power off completely and restart a couple of times on it’s own.
The light detector didn’t seem to know what was going on and really dimmed the screen.

It was great otherwise though.

Of course I don’t condone subjecting your phone to excessive heat, horrid water (or clean water), insulation and other violence but I thought I’d share.

Also, for those of you who wonder why a phone is needed in firefighting gear at all. We’re a volunteer department, not working shifts. It’s good to be able to get a hold of friends, family and employers should the need arise.