Photo: Gofundme // Lauren Harris
Our phones are a constant presence in our day-to-day existence, but it’s not often that they actually save our lives. That’s exactly what happened to a Washington man, after he found himself buried in an avalanche and his wife was able to send his location to rescuers using the Find My Phone app.
Last Thursday, Michael Harris was skiing Big Chief Bowl at the Washington state ski area Stevens Pass, when he was caught in the slide. As he told Fox 13, he was able to avoid a boulder on the way down, but when he came to a stop, was completely unable to move. “The sensation was being encased in cement,” he told Fox.
Though he was unable to even reach his phone or smart watch, the devices proved to be his savior. His wife, Penny Harris, had been tracking his location on Apple’s Find My Phone app. After noticing that he had not moved for three hours she promptly alerted authorities.
In a GoFundMe for Michael, his daughter Lauren explained the frantic scramble to come to his aid. “[Penny] let me know that she was going to be driving up the pass in an effort to find him and that she had not been successful in trying to get in contact with ski patrol up on the mountain,” she wrote. “I got off the phone with her and made the effort to get ahold of ski patrol to inform them of a missing person. After some time I was finally able to get ahold of dispatch. I was able to give identifying factors and made them aware my mom was heading up to show them the location on her phone of where it said he was. Per my mom, ski patrol was waiting and ready for her when she arrived and acted quickly to locate my dad. After what felt like an eternity, ski patrol radioed overhead that he had been located and they would be bringing him down on the sled.”
Harris had been buried for four hours before he was recovered. When he regained consciousness in the back of an ambulance, he was suffering a contusion of his lung, pneumonia, injuries to his kidneys and a right tibial plateau fracture. “It is a true miracle that he survived and didn’t sustain life-altering or life-threatening injuries,” wrote Lauren.
Michael spent five days in the hospital and underwent surgery on his broken leg, before being released home Tuesday afternoon. “Though Mikes has a rough road ahead of him, he remains positive and in good spirits,” wrote his wife in an update. “There aren’t words for the gratitude we feel with all of the love, support, and generosity you all have given us over the past couple of days. It’s beyond humbling .”
