Mother uses GPS to locate missing 17-year-old daughter, finds her pinned under car 25 feet down mountainside
A North Carolina mother found her missing teenage daughter trapped in her car on a mountainside by using a phone tracking app.
17-year-old Macy Smith was trapped underneath her car for more than seven hours after it careened 25ft down the side of a mountain.
Catrina Cramer Alexander from Mount Airy, North Carolina, revealed that she resorted to the Find My Friends app after Smith missed her curfew and did not answer calls or texts from either her mother or her brother.
Talking to WFMY-TV, Alexander said, "The lack of response was out of character for her." She revealed that she got into her car and went to investigate after the GPS tracking showed that Smith was at the same location for “far too long."
"I can't explain watching the GPS on my phone with my dot for my phone getting close to hers and then suddenly seeing the tire tracks," she said.
Alexander found Smith trapped underneath her car down a 25-foot embankment in Pilot Mountain.
Taking to Facebook, Smith wrote, “I was lying in a ditch 20 yards off the road for the 7th hour with my arm pinned under my car. I will never forget the sound of my family calling out my name when they found me around 10:30 pm."
"I hydroplaned at 4:00 pm and ran in between two trees down an embankment, flipped my car 3 times, and landed in my back seat with my arm pinned in between the car and the ground," Smith wrote.
After Smith was found, paramedics arrived to take her to the hospital. It was later revealed that the teenager had fractured her neck and had to undergo surgery to relieve pressure and swelling.
Smith also suffered severe nerve damage in her left arm which had been trapped underneath the car.
She said she was not able to reach her phone when she was pinned underneath the car but was able to grab her Bible. "I held on to my bible and prayed harder than I had ever prayed before. I do not deserve to be here right now, but God has bigger plans for me."
“We are celebrating every minute and every milestone," the 17-year-old revealed.
Both Alexander and Smith hope their story encourages other parents and children to use Find My Friends and similar tracking apps to be safe.