Father of missing skier wonders if better technology could have helped rescue effort
By Richard Chang, Sacramento Bee
A day after the search for his missing son was called off at Sugar Bowl Ski Resort, Mike May put on his skis and headed back up the hill.
May and a few family members huddled together Wednesday amid cold temperatures to “celebrate Carson and the place where he loved so much — the mountains and the ski slopes,” Mike May said during an interview Thursday at his Davis home.
Carson May, a 23-year-old Sugar Bowl ski instructor, disappeared Jan. 14. An exhaustive search spanning several days turned up few clues, and Placer County authorities canceled the operation Tuesday because it was unlikely Carson would be found alive.
May, 62, wonders whether better technology could have helped rescuers precisely locate his son. Authorities pinged Carson’s cell phone, but that provided only a general area of where he may have been located. May said the Find My Phone app could have given searchers a GPS coordinate. However, he said, existing privacy laws make it difficult to gain access to that information from the cellular companies unless the app was previously enabled.