Michael Harris was on his final run on the ski slopes at Stevens Pass in the Cascade Mountains on February 26 when tragedy struck—he was caught in an avalanche. “Because I was on skis, I got caught between two slabs,” he told FOX 13 Seattle. Harris was buried in a snow hole and remained upright. He tried to free himself by making a swimming motion, but he couldn’t budge. “The sensation was being encased in cement,” he said. He was packed so tightly that he couldn’t even grab the phone from his jacket pocket. His wife, Penny, sensed something was wrong when she hadn’t heard from him. “I started freaking out,” she told WSAW-TV. “My texts got more intense, and then I started calling.” Harris could feel his phone buzzing in his pocket, but there was nothing he could do. “My mind shifted very quickly to ‘does anyone know that I’m here and how am I going to survive?’” he said. Stevens Pass. Photo credit: Michael Greenlee/Flickr Penny had a brilliant solution Penny checked the Find My feature on her phone to see whether her husband had moved on the mountain. But his location was static—not typical for a skier. Realizing that if he wasn’t moving, something was very wrong, she contacted the ski patrol and gave them his location. “They were able to take my location and get a snapshot of it and pinpoint pretty much where he was,” she said. After being stuck in the snow for four hours, Harris was rescued. Ski patrol was shocked to find him still conscious. Harris’ body temperature had dropped into the 70s, and he was severely hypothermic. Throughout the harrowing experience, all he could think about was his family. “The thing I was hoping is that I’d get to see her [his wife] and my four kids one more time,” he said. “They were the only thing I thought about.” Harris was alive, but he sustained several serious injuries in the avalanche. His daughter, Lauren, posted an update on GoFundMe about his condition. “A full trauma was called,” she wrote. “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.” Michael Harris in the hospital. Photo credit: GoFundMe The avalanche came at a terrible time for the family Harris is expected to make a full recovery, but his injuries couldn’t have come at a worse time. He is currently between jobs, and his recovery will delay any return to work. So, his family set up a GoFundMe page to help them through this difficult time. It has already raised over $36,000 toward a goal of $40,000. “I have started a GoFundMe to try and help alleviate some of the medical costs as well additional bills for my family as my dad is the sole provider, and we are unsure how long the road to recovery actually looks. Literally anything helps,” Lauren wrote.  When someone is caught in an avalanche and encased in freezing snow, time is of the essence. According to Safeback, about 75% of avalanche deaths occur due to suffocation, and after roughly ten minutes of being trapped in the snow, the risk of asphyxiation increases rapidly. Amazingly, Harris survived four hours in freezing conditions without passing out. What a blessing that his quick-thinking wife was able to locate him before he lost his life in the snow. The post Wife finds an incredibly clever way to find her husband buried in an avalanche appeared first on Upworthy.