Friends Use iPhone App to Find Missing College Student

— -- A college student who went missing after a sorority semi-formal was found by his friends two days later, lying face down in a ditch next to train tracks.

Jimmy Hubert, an engineering student at Georgia Tech, was last seen Friday evening. His friends worked through the weekend to piece together Hubert's steps by using the tracking device on his date's iPhone.

"It all relates back to the fact that Jimmy had his date's phone in his pocket at the event," Hubert’s friend Christian Battaglia told ABC News.

Because Hubert unintentionally left the party with his date’s phone, his friends were able to track the phone’s movements using the Find My iPhone app that Hubert's date had installed on her device. A screen grab of the phone's last known ping, or location, was taken before the phone ran out of battery or was turned off, Battaglia said.

That information proved critical for the search. Emma Jeffery, a friend of Hubert, told ABC station WSB in Atlanta on Monday that she went looking for Hubert in the area where the last ping was detected.

"We were about to turn around and then I said there was a shaded area you know over in the ditch and I said ‘What’s that?’ and then sure enough it was Jimmy," she said.

"I thought he was gone," she continued. "He was face down, laying down, face down, his head was turned to the side, his eyes were open, he wasn’t speaking at first."

Another friend, Alexandra Vande Linde, told WSB that Hubert appeared disorientated and confused.

"He opened his eyes and then he just said 'Where am I? Am I missing,'" she said.

Hubert, 24, was transported to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta for medical treatment.

Battaglia, who has visited Hubert in the hospital, said Hubert was “able to wiggle all of his fingers and toes but was having trouble breathing."

The Atlanta Police Department confirmed to ABC News that there is an active investigation into Hubert’s disappearance.

"[Hubert's rescue] is all credited to our students not giving up on their friend,” Robert Connolly, Georgia Tech's chief of police, said at a press conference Monday.

Battaglia said he believes Hubert may have been robbed and noted that Hubert's and his date's phones were missing.

Battaglia told ABC News that Hubert is being treated for broken vertebrae, broken ribs, a punctured lung and cerebral hemorrhaging in the emergency room. Hubert’s mother Didi is directing all media inquiries to Battaglia and other friends.