Lost Mobile Phone

In the 20-plus years I have carried a mobile phone, I have never lost one until now. I did drop mine on a bike trail 7 years ago but a nice person called my son and I arranged to get it back. Then I lost my phone on Christmas eve and I won't be able to get it back until June as it is now buried on top of a mountain under a lot of new snow.

How did I lose my phone? I fell skiing. Last year I skied 80 days and only fell about 2 or 3 times. My fall on Saturday happened because I went skiing in a huge snowstorm and couldn't really see much. I didn't mind the blindness as all of the fresh snow made for a great ski day. One of my skis hit a large wind-blown mound of snow and threw me off balance. I spun around and landed on my back. I hit the ground hard and gave myself a slight headache even though I wore a helmet. That caused my phone to fall out of an inside pocket but stayed in my jacket. When I stood up, the phone fell out of the bottom of my jacket.

About an hour later I discovered that I no longer had my phone. I knew I lost it because of the fall and so I headed back to the scene of the accident. Unfortunately the ski patrol closed that part of the mountain because of extreme avalanche danger. Had I been able to get near my phone, I could have used my second phone to call it and I would have been able to locate it.

They finally opened that part of the mountain again today and I went looking for my phone. Between when I lost my phone and when I could finally look for it, 2 feet of fresh snow fell. I scouted around a bit but no hope existed for finding my phone. So this afternoon I went out and got a replacement one.

Fortunately I have a fairly recent backup of the data on my phone and am just missing a few notes, a handful of pictures (none really that important) and a list of blocked telephone numbers from telemarketers. I did learn a few things from this experience:

1. Backup the data on your phone regularly. My recent backup saved me from having to recreate my contacts list and kept me from losing some really precious photos.
2. Make sure you have a Find-My-Phone app installed on your phone. This will sound an audible alarm even if your phone is silenced. This didn't help me because the unsafe conditions prohibited from me getting to my phone in a timely manner, however it might help you.
3. If you are accident prone and have a tendency to break or lose your phone on a regular basis, spring for the replacement insurance. A new phone can be expensive. My mistake cost me over $400.
4. If you ski with your phone, make sure it is in a pocket with a zipper so it doesn't fall out. Both of my sons and my son-in-law reminded me of this even though I came to that conclusion 3 milliseconds after I discovered I had lost my phone.

Hopefully this friendly reminder will help someone who is about to lose his or her phone in the near future.