[FOUND] Cell Lost In Snow

I stopped to help a neighbor stuck in their driveway on the way home last night after we had 5" of fresh wet snow. When I got home I couldn't find my phone. Searched everywhere then went to bed. This morning I got on the internet to locate it and found it was at the neighbor's house so I went back to look but found the neighbor had just plowed the driveway. I shoveled snow for an hour but no phone. With more snow on the way and daylight fading I called around to find a metal detector. I scurried into town thru the blowing snow on black ice roads and whiteout visibility to rent the last one, only to find someone else beat me to it as I walked in. The store owner felt bad and rented me rent his personal one. At the house I canvased the entire area slowely but got nothing except a lot of noise where the culvert was. I buried my keys under 6" of hardpack snow to test the MD but it couldn't find them so I knew I would never find the phone, buried 1-2 ft. It's in sleep mode and has a lock screen. Still I remotely locked it from the internet (if that actually worked, who knows) and will have to wait till spring to find it.
 
Insurance doesn't cover lost or stolen phones so I get to pay for a phone I can't use.

My worst phone mishap was when I bent down to pick up the poop of the dog I was walking and it fell out of my shirt pocket, slap bang in the middle of the poop. I took it home in a bag and used about half a bottle of rubbing alcohol cleaning it up but for weeks afterward I still held it an inch from my ear when using it.

Hmm...  This thread is making me realize that I currently don't have the "protection plan" simply because I couldn't afford it before but, now, I rely on my phone for LOTS of things (heck, I can even remote in to servers and fix 'em from the dang thing!) so maybe I should add that to my plan.
 
My current cell phone has replaced:  My home phone line, a separate navigation device, taking an iPod with me, taking a camera with me, my alarm clock, having to take a physical game or book, my desk calculator, taking a flashlight with me, etc.  I have reference material in it, I learn new things on it, I keep client information on it, my grocery list is there, any to-do lists or spontaneous notes (I have a Galaxy Note 5 with that wonderful stylus).  Plus I'm sure I'm missing other stuff.  It's great!
 
Now that many of the "nice to have" things are far more stable and accurate (like the GPS navigation and camera/video resolution), it really has become a valuable, go-to tool for me.
 
Of course, in the last 15 years, I can count on one hand the number of times I've dropped my phone or temporarily lost it (and still have fingers left), so that helps!  The new wireless chargers are wonderful (and, if you get the Galaxy Note 7, you can start campfires with it too! LOL).

The only time my phone has ever gotten scratched was one time on Madison Avenue when a guy jumped out of his car and started throwing punches at me because I'd yelled at him for almost hitting someone. Rather than reciprocate the fisticuffs I thought I'd call the cops. He grabbed my phone out of my hand and threw it halfway across the avenue. It was a BlackBerry Bold and I thought it would be smashed for sure. Went to retrieve it and to my surprise it only had a little scratch on the case. After the guy drove away a woman came up to me and said "excuse me, is this phone yours as well?" It was a Samsung and the screen was smashed. Turns out when the guy leaped out of his car, he had his phone in his hand and when he grabbed mine with that same hand, in his anger he threw them BOTH into the road! I laughed so hard at the thought of him realizing what he'd done. That Samsung went straight in the trash. 
 
Some people seem to smash their phone screens on a regular basis. I have an employee whose screen is perpetually smashed. He gets a new one and then that one is smashed a couple of weeks later. I have no idea how these people are breaking their screens. 

Hopefully the battery dies before water gets into it.
If you're that lucky, 24 hours in a bowl of rice should sort it right out.

Hmm...  Ok, not in the microwave or the freezer...  I wonder if it's in one of the rain gutters?

auto_da_fe
Sharke - you should have take the SIM out of the Samsung....you could have had some real fun.
Nice NYC story !
 
JR

Believe me I really wanted to, but the thing was locked with one of those swipe passwords where you have to draw a shape on the screen.