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Nearly a year after a deadly landslide destroyed her mountain home rental during Hurricane Helene, Kylie Landolfi of North Carolina made a surprising discovery.
The 22-year-old found her lost iPhone buried in rubble near the ruins of her home in Bat Cave.
She had been living there with her boyfriend, Andrew, 23, when the storm triggered a landslide in Sept. 2024.
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The couple’s house was pushed off its foundation, forcing them to flee with their three pets, news agency SWNS reported.
They escaped just moments before disaster struck again.
The ground gave way a second time, sending more debris crashing down the mountainside.
“We escaped the rubble just seconds before a second landslide hit,” said Landolfi.
She added, “With no shoes, phones or supplies, we were exposed and hit by dirt and debris.”
The couple survived with minimal injuries, per SWNS.
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“We cared for an injured neighbor with a punctured lung and helped rescue a family of four trapped near the slide zone,” said Landolfi, “including a mother with a shattered ankle and a child with a broken leg.”
“We escaped the rubble just seconds before a second landslide hit.”
Landolfi and her boyfriend sheltered in a nearby home for 27 hours before firefighters arrived.
They spent that time helping to care for seriously injured neighbors, SWNS noted. The couple said they relied on instinct and teamwork to stay safe.
Landolfi said she’d returned to the site several times but had been unable to recover any belongings.
In April 2025, Bat Cave Disaster Relief helped her access the area for another search.
That’s when she made a wild discovery.
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“While digging through rubble, I found my iPhone dusty but seemingly intact,” she said.
“We had lost almost every photo of our ferrets and the home we loved and almost every picture of our ferrets that did not escape,” she said.
“The phone’s discovery felt like a miracle … I could not believe it.”
The phone appeared intact, said SWNS, even though it had been buried for seven months, surviving landslides and harsh outdoor conditions.
“It even took me a second to realize how crazy it was to be holding my phone that survived two landslides and seven months outside,” she said.
“We never imagined we would find either phone and had grieved the loss of the contents already.”
“The phone’s discovery felt like a miracle.”
Many of the couple’s most cherished memories, they said, were stored only on that device.
“For those wondering, no, we had not updated our iCloud storage,” she said, as SWNS reported.
“We had a hard drive that everything was on, but when your whole house is destroyed, having a hard drive in the same place as your phones does not help.”
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