Skier Michael Harris Was Caught in an Avalanche. His iPhone Helped Save His Life.

After an avalanche buried a Washington State skier, his wife’s quick thinking and his cell phone’s Find My iPhone feature saved his life.

Michael Harris was skiing at Stevens Pass, a resort an hour and a half east of Seattle, on February 26, when an avalanche swept him away. He was buried for four hours, he wrote in a Facebook post two days after the incident. Harris was on an expert inbounds run known as Big Chief Bowl when the slide hit him.

“Because I was on skis, I got caught between two slabs,” he told FOX13 Seattle. Harris narrowly avoided a large rock before plunging into what he described as a snow hole, where he became trapped. “The sensation was being encased in cement.”

Harris had an iPhone in his pocket and an Apple Watch on his wrist, but couldn’t reach either. He was skiing alone. His wife, Penny, who was back at home, said she had a strange sense that something was wrong. She used her Find My iPhone function to geolocate Harris and saw that he was stationary on the side of the mountain.

“You get a feeling something’s just not right,” she told the news outlet. “I followed my intuition, saw his location, checked it a couple times, and saw it wasn’t moving.”

When Penny called, Harris could feel the phone buzzing in his pocket. Pinned beneath the snow, however, he couldn’t reach it. Harris had been buried under the snow for at least three hours, and when his wife couldn’t get in touch with him, Penny called Stevens Pass’s ski patrol for help.

Using the live location data from Harris’s Find my iPhone app, patrollers pinpointed the exact area where he was trapped and dug several feet into the debris to rescue him

According to a GoFundMe created by his daughter, Lauren, Harris is now in the hospital recovering from a broken knee, lung and kidney damage, and hypothermia.

“I was inches away from the thing that could save my life, but I just couldn’t get there,” he told FOX13. “And yet because she knew how to use Find My iPhone, I’m here today.”

In a March 8 update, Harris said he was recovering well and felt deeply touched by the outpouring of community support and prayer. After nearly suffocating while trapped under the snow for four hours, he said he is now grateful for the simple act of breathing.

“I’m in awe of the abundance of oxygen I can freely access, while just 10 days ago on that mountain, it was a precious and limited resource I had come close to exhausting,” Harris said. “We all need it to live and thrive, yet it’s always just there. So easy to take for granted, but this morning, every breath feels precious and something to be savored.”