A woman recovered her phone nearly a year after losing it in a landslide during Hurricane Helene.

Kylie Landolfi, 22, and her boyfriend Andrew, 23, were renting a mountain home in Bat Cave, North Carolina, when Hurricane Helene triggered a landslide in September last year.

The home was pushed off its foundation and Kylie and Andrew had to flee immediately with three of their pets.

The couple sheltered in a nearby home for 27 hours before firefighters rescued them.

Seven months later, in April 2025, Kylie returned to the ruins to search for any belongings and miraculously managed to find her iPhone, seemingly undamaged.

Kylie said: "While digging through rubble, I found my iPhone dusty but seemingly intact. "

"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."

"The phone's discovery felt like a miracle."

When the landslide hit, Kylie and Andrew had little time to gather anything besides their ferrets and cat, but were fortunate to escape with only minor injuries.

They spent the next 27 hours caring for seriously injured neighbours in a makeshift shelter before firefighters airlifted the group out.

Kylie said: "We escaped the rubble just seconds before a second landslide hit. "

"With no shoes, phones or supplies, we were exposed and hit by dirt and debris. "

"Miraculously, we survived with minimal injuries."

"We cared for an injured neighbour with a punctured lung and helped rescue a family of four trapped near the slide zone, including a mother with a shattered ankle and a child with a broken leg."

Kylie had returned to the landslide site previously but had been unable to retrieve any belongings.

Last month, Bat Cave Disaster Relief helped her return to the area for another search.

While looking through the debris, the 22-year-old discovered her phone under a piece of rubble.

Kylie said: "I could not believe it."

"It even took me a second to realise how crazy it was to be holding my phone that survived two landslides and seven months outside. "

"We never imagined we would find either phone and had grieved the loss of the contents already."

"For those wondering, no we had not updated our iCloud storage."

"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."

Kylie's phone has yet to turn on but still it will eventually.

She said: "We dried it carefully and are still hoping it powers on, possibly restoring the memories we feared were gone forever."