With Bible near her, teen said 'I was going to be OK' as she waited hours to be rescued from crash

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[CAPTIONING MADE POSSIBLE BY WXII-TV] [CAPTIONING PERFORMED BY THE NATIONAL CAPTIONING INSTITUTE, WHICH IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ITS CAPTION CONTENT AND ACCURACY. VISIT NCICAP.ORG] BRIANA: FIRST AT 11:00, A TEENAGER IN SURRY COUNTY IS OPENING UP ABOUT AN EXPERIENCE THAT NEARLY KILLED HER, BUT SHE SAYS THERE’S A FEW REASONS WHY SHE’S ALIVE, NAMELY HER FAITH. OUR STEVE KING SHARES MACY SMITH’S MESSAGE FOR ALL FAMILIES. STEVE: 17-YEAR-OLD MACY SMITH’S CAR ENDED UP HERE DOWN THIS EMBANKMENT OFF OF PILOT KNOB ROAD NEAR U.S. 52. SHE WAS STUCK ALONE DOWN THIS EMBANKMENT FOR NEARLY SEVEN HOURS. >> THE FIRST HOUR, I WAS FRANTIC. I WAS LOOKING FOR WAYS TO GET OUT AND I WAS THINKING OF JUST DIFFERENT THINGS I COULD DO. STEVE: PINNED DOWN, SHE WAS UNABLE TO FIND HER PHONE. SHE SAYS THE ONLY THING SHE COULD DO WAS TOUCH HER BIBLE. >> SINCE THE SECOND I LAID MY HAND ON THAT BIBLE, I KNEW THAT THAT WAS GOD TELLING ME THAT IT WAS ALL IN HIS HANDS AND IT WAS HAPPENING FOR A REASON AND THAT I WOULD BE OK. STEVE: FINALLY, SHE HEARD A CAR STOP AND THE DOOR SHUT. >> I HADN’T CRIED THE WHOLE TIME THAT I WAS UNDER MY CAR AT ALL, BUT WHEN MY STEPDAD GOT DOWN T THE CAR AND HELD MY HAND THROUGH THE SUNROOF, I COULDN’T HOLD IT IN ANYMORE. >> I CAN’T EVEN IMAGINE HOW A PERSON HER AGE REMAINED CALM. AND I’M GRATEFUL FOR HER FAITH AND I’M GRATEFUL FOR HER GRI STEVE: HER FAMILY MEMBERS FOUND HER USING THE FIND MY FRIENDS APP, WHICH TRACKS APPLE DEVICES LIKE IPHONES. MACY AND HER MOM BOTH SAY THAT APP MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD. >> HAVING THAT LOCATION, IF WE DIDN’T HAVE THAT, WE WOULD HAVE NEVER KNOWN WHERE TO LOOK BECAUSE I THINK HER GPS TOOK HER A DIFFERENT WAY THAN IT NORMALLY WOULD HAVE. STEVE: MACY HAS A FRACTURED NECK AND LOTS OF NERVE DAMAGE, WITH A LONG ROAD TO RECOVERY AHEAD. SHE SAYS ALONG WITH GETTING BETTER, HER MISSION IS TO SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF APPS LIKE THESE. >> I DEFINITELY FEEL LIKE GOD SPARED MY LIFE FOR A REASON. I WANT TO SHARE MY MESSAGE BECAUSE I THINK TEENAGERS NEED TO HEAR IT FROM ME. IF YOU HAD BEEN THROUGH WHAT I’VE BEEN THROUGH, YOU WOULD NEVER SAY THAT YOU DIDN’T WANT THAT APP. STEVE: NOW MACY’S FAMILY IS USING THE LIFE360 APP BECAUSE THEY SAY IT HAS MORE FEATURES THAN THE FIND MY FRIENDS APP. AND AS THEY HAVE SHOWN, YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN YOU WILL NEED IT.

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A North Carolina teenager is trying to spread awareness about the benefits of phone-tracking apps, which she says helped save her life following a car crash last weekend.Macy Smith was driving to see a friend on the afternoon of June 7.Smith’s car hydroplaned and flipped over before going down a ravine. There was heavy rain at the time. Smith’s arm ended up pinned under the vehicle and she says the only thing she could touch was her Bible. She says she knew that her phone’s Find My Friends app was activated, but she couldn't find her phone after the crash.“My hair was stuck under my arm under the window and so I ripped my hair so I could turn my neck and my head around to look around me to see if my phone, that was the first thing I went to grab for to see if I could find and it was nowhere in sight and within that first minute that I was there, I saw my Bible laying there and it was the only thing that I could touch,” said Smith.“As I laid there I thought that it was the end for a minute. In the very beginning, I was like, ‘What if they never find me? What if the location doesn’t pick up? What if I don’t have good service? All these different things were running through my mind and I never really thought that it was the end because I knew, honestly, I knew that with the Bible laying beside my head, it meant that I was going to be OK.”She said she knew it was a matter of time before her family members would use the app to find her.“I didn’t know what time it was so I just watched it get darker and I was just like, ‘OK, maybe this is when they’re going to come,’ and then time passed, ‘OK, maybe now,’ but the whole time I knew they were going to show up and I’m so thankful for my family and we’re such a tight family that I knew that I wasn’t going to be there the whole night without them looking for me,” Smith said.“Since the second I laid my hand to that Bible I knew that that was God telling me that it was all in his hands and it was happening for a reason and that I would be OK.”Macy’s family found her after 10 p.m. They communicated with 911 and used the Find My Friends app to pinpoint Macy's location and lead rescue crews to her. “I heard a car, and at that point 28 cars had already passed, and so I didn’t know it was them and I heard the car door shut and I heard my brother yell, ‘Hey,’ and I heard my stepdad yell my name at the same time and at first I didn’t even respond, like I was just so relieved and I had to process it for a second and the first thing I said was, ‘I’m OK but I need help’ and that was when I knew that it was all OK,” said Smith.“I hadn’t cried the whole time that I was under my car at all but when my stepdad got down to the car and held my hand through the sun roof, I couldn’t hold it in anymore because of the feeling of relief and knowing that I don’t even deserve to be alive. It’s unreal that I survived that crash.”Smith was in the hospital for about five days. She has a fractured neck and nerve damage in her left arm. She has a long road to recovery ahead of her.Her mother, Catrina Alexander, said she’s proud of her daughter’s strength.“I can’t even imagine how a person her age remained calm and I’m grateful for her faith and I’m grateful for her grit because she’s a tough girl and she always has been and it served her well and we’re all grateful,” said Alexander.“I’ve always been raised to be really strong and independent,” said Smith.Now, Smith is trying to let everyone know how important apps like Find My Friends.“Sneaking around or not telling your parents where you are is not worth what I’ve gone through and I want to share my message because teenagers need to hear it from me, someone who has actually gone through it to understand that it’s not worth it and it really did save my life,” Smith said.“If you had been through what I’ve been through you would never say that you didn’t want that app.“I definitely feel like God spared my life for a reason. I don’t know what that reason is. I don’t know if it was to show that I’m loved and I’m cared for and I’m going to do big things or if it’s what I’m doing right now and maybe this exact moment or this interview is going to save a life or more than one.”Alexander said she’s been thinking about how the app helped save her daughter’s life “every minute” since the crash.“Having that location, if we didn’t have that we would have never known where to look because I think her GPS took her a different way than it normally would have,” Alexander said. “I am certain that that is what saved her life.”The family started using the Find My Friends app about a year ago.“Kind of as a parent, my stance was if I’m paying the bill for the cell phone I want to at least have this and then if something were to happen, I would know where you are, it’s not an invasion of your privacy, it’s really more for your safety and that was really how we approached that,” said Alexander.“I think Macy’s message and I would say my message as a parent is to encourage other parents to investigate and stand strong and insisting on this, because we have this technology.“Not even just for younger people but if you have elderly members of your family I think it’s very helpful. It’s a tool.“We feel very fortunate that we’re celebrating her recovery and not a different outcome and we think the technology is why.“Have the conversation. Have the conversation about this particular incident. That’s why we’re all supporting Macy and supporting her getting the word out because quite honestly that might be the conversation that helps everybody decide, ‘Oh wow, that can really happen. That can really happen.’ And I think she feels that if she can help just one other person, that’s why she’s here.”Alexander said her family is now using the Life360 app because it has more features than the Find My Friends app.On Monday, a man using a phone-tracking app in Surry County discovered his father had been killed in a crash. Troopers said 53-year-old Bruce Dillard died after a crash around 10 a.m. Dillard's son used a phone tracking app to look up his dad's phone and discovered his dad had gone off the road and slammed into a shed, investigators said. Authorities are still trying to figure out how Dillard crashed. They believe it may have been as a result of a medical issue.Surry County Emergency Services Director John Shelton said these two crashes show the importance of phone-tracking apps.“A lot of the parents I talk to on an ongoing basis, they have installed this app in their phone with their children and it has been very much to the advantage to be able to know where they are 24 hours a day. It’s not, in some cases, like they really want them to know where they are but I’m telling you, in situations where it could be a life or death scenario, it’s absolutely important it’s on there. It’s free. Why not?”