Wristwatch drowning - what first aid can I do?

Dry it out after first removing the battery. It should work OK, the car keys of my previous car went through several wash and spin cycles and once dried out worked perfectly well afterwards. I was suprised how little water actually found its way in.

Did the watch not have even a small amount of waterproofing? If so, it should be ok. If not...

Remove battery then put the watch in a sealable container. Cover with dry white rice, seal the container and leave for a few days. It's worked for me with a mobile phone, so might work with a watch.

Jeff Layman snipped-for-privacy@invalid.invalid wrote: <Snip>

It was still telling the correct time when I extracted it. The back says good yo 100ft, but Timpsons always mutter darkly about it no longer being waterproof after they open it.

I think maybe they offer waterproofness for some or all watches at extra cost??

I think I’ll suck it and see.

As the saying goes “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it”.

Don't flood it with solvent - it will remove the lubricant from the bearings. Put it in a glass desiccator with some silica gel desiccant, or a hermetically sealed jar or even just a well-sealed poly bag. Make sure the silica gel is fully dried out. If it's self-indicating and OK it should be blue; if it's close to being exhausted it will be pink. In the latter case put the gel in a domestic oven at around 100°C until it turns blue and cool it down, before you introduce it to the watch.

Plenty silica gel on eBay e.g.

That won't dry it out.

Depends how hard he sucks :-)