A trainee 911 dispatcher in the US has used a deceptively simple way of locating a critically-injured hiker after the man's distress call was cut off.
Ryan Pritchard was hiking with his sons in the remote Blue Ridge Loop Trail in California when he slipped and fell 45 metres down a cliff near Lake Berryessa.
His 11-year-old son called 911 but the call was cut off before he could tell operators their location.
As dispatchers hit a dead-end trying to make contact, trainee Breanna Martinez, who'd only been on the job for three weeks, began to search for Pritchard on Facebook.
She says the first post on his page was a picture of his two sons standing in front of Lake Berryessa and the comment "Hiking the Blue Ridge Trail today".
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The post helped guide rescue crews to the area.
