iphone 5 does not activate after hard reset

yesterday my iphone 5 began "searching" the sprint service for hours, it would find it for a bit then loose it completle for hours. i took it to the sprint store he did a networt restore, still after that it was "searching". he advised me to go home back up th iphone and do a hard reset to factory settings. i did but now the iphone is a the start up screen trying to activate but since its still "searching", it will not activate to my number and i cannot back up my phone now

it did however get a little wet because it was raining but wasent dropped in a puddle or anything like that.