[soundman98]

anything's possible.
most likely only if there was a physical wire breakage, and that broken portion chaffed against another wire to cause the damage.

you are in florida, so it's possible that the heat from the airbag deployment in the wires affected other wires, and then reduced the insulation thickness that the repeated heat/cool cycles of the florida heat did it in the rest of the way.

i just find it weird that they're only speculating that it's the harness because 'the button works in another car'-- should be able to test for that with an ohm meter at both ends of the harness-- both continuity across individual wires(should be near-zero), and also resistance between wires(should be near-infinite).