Buried in an Avalanche for 4 Hours, He Was Saved by His Wife and ‘Find My iPhone’

Michael Harris was skiing the backcountry terrain of Big Chief Bowl at Stevens Pass Ski Resort in Washington when an avalanche swept him off his feet and buried him beneath the snow. Trapped in the cold and dark, unable to move, he was running out of time—and out of reach of anyone who could see where he had gone under.

When Michael failed to answer her call, his wife, Penny Harris, turned to the one tool she had: the "Find My iPhone" feature on her phone. It pinpointed the location of his device, and with that, she contacted resort staff and showed them exactly where the signal placed him. That single dot on a map gave rescue teams something they desperately needed in a vast snowfield—a precise place to dig.

“Trapped in the cold and dark, unable to move, he was running out of time—and out of reach of anyone who could see where he had gone under.”

The rescue stretched on for more than four hours. When crews finally reached Michael and pulled him free, he had survived, though with serious injuries including a lung contusion, pneumonia, kidney damage and a fractured tibial plateau. Doctors projected a recovery of 14 to 16 weeks, and a GoFundMe campaign raised tens of thousands of dollars toward his medical bills.

Michael was unflinching about how close he had come to not making it home. "I was inches away from the thing that could save my life, but I just couldn’t get there," he said. "And yet because she knew how to use ‘Find My iPhone,’ I’m here today." It is a strange and modern kind of love story: a wife who refused to lose her husband, an everyday phone feature pressed into life-saving service, and a man pulled out of the snow because someone knew precisely where to look.