Michael Harris was buried for hours under several feet of snow after an avalanche while skiing Big Chief Bowl at Stevens Pass, Washington. Unable to move or reach his phone, he prayed for help. His wife Penny, sensing something was wrong when he didn’t answer calls, used the Find My iPhone app to track his immobile location, alerted ski patrol, and drove to the resort.
Rescuers located and extracted him using the app’s data. Harris suffered hypothermia, pneumonia, lung contusion, kidney injuries, and a tibial fracture requiring surgery, but is recovering, crediting his wife’s intuition and the app for his survival.
Explaining the situation, Michael Harris said, “The sensation was being encased in cement. I’m a religious guy. I said God, I’m in trouble, I don’t know if anyone is going to know where I’m at, but I can’t get out of this on my own.”
His wife, Penny Harris, told local media, “You get a feeling something’s just not right. I followed my intuition, saw his location, checked it a couple times, and saw it wasn’t moving.” Following up on these comments, Michael noted, “I was inches away from the thing that could save my life, but I just couldn’t get there. And yet because she knew how to use ‘Find My iPhone’, I’m here today.”
A crowdfunding link, commissioned by the family, offers additional context on the story. “I’m writing this as I still haven’t quite wrapped my head around the nightmare and severity of the past 48 hours. This past Thursday I woke up to serval SOS texts and calls from family members,” Harris’ daughter wrote.
She added, “The first words [Penny] said to me was “your dad is missing”. Those words were not the words I was anticipating. My heart sank, I felt like I was going to vomit and I felt the beginning of an anxiety attack coming on.”
“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,” she added later in the same document.
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The crowdfunding page continued, “Per ski patrol and EMS medics, my dad had been struck by an avalanche that was inbounds of the resort. He had been down and covered by the avalanche for 4 hours. He was hypothermic with a temp in the high 70s/ very low 80s. Warm IV fluids were started and was quickly taken to the ER.”
“A full trauma was called. After various labs and imaging, my dad only sustained a contusion of his lung, pneumonia, injuries to his kidneys and a right tibial plateau fracture. He is currently in the hospital and has surgery scheduled for his broken leg,” Harris’ daughter noted.
Concluding the document pointed out, “The ortho provider that talked with him explained that the recovery time for him will be about 14-16 weeks if everything goes well. It is a true miracle that he survived and didn’t sustain life altering or life threatening injuries. I have been thanking God since the incident that he is still here with us.”
Featured image: Robinseed, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ski_Famille_-_Family_Ski_Holidays.jpg