A handful of hostages captured in a terrorist siege were brave enough to leave the grounds of their captors and successfully found refuge thanks to an iPhone app.
Liviu Floria, a Romanian gas worker along with seven other individuals, fled a Saharan natural gas plant that was overrun by the Islamist Masked Brigade. Escaping the plant, however, was only half the battle; the group then had to navigate through the surrounding desert. Floria and the others traveled over 20 miles across unfamiliar terrain using only a distant light and the compass application on Floria’s smartphone.
The New York Times reports on Floria's ordeal: "Fortunately, the iPhone app worked without a cellular signal. They walked over barren terrain of sand and rocks and small hills, from about 2 a.m. until the late afternoon with only short breaks."
Unfortunately a number of other hostages were unable to walk away from the siege, over 80 people—including both hostages and terrorists—died during the attack.
[via Huffington Post]
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