A 23-year-old man from Maryland was reaching for a fire selfie over the weekend before he plunged into a crater of Mount Vesuvius, a dormant volcano in Italy known for petrifying Pompeii.
Philip Carroll had lost his phone during the selfie bid and slid several feet into the crater while attempting to retrieve his phone, the Guardian reported. He was later rescued by authorities, who used a rope to pull him out of the crater.
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“He tried to recover it but slipped and slid a few meters into the crater. He managed to stop his fall, but at that point, he was stuck,” Paolo Cappelli, the president of the Presidio Permanente Vulcano Vesuvio, a base on top of the mountain, told NBC. “He was very lucky. If he kept going, he would have plunged 300 meters into the crater.”
Witnesses spotted Carroll with at least two family members hiking a forbidden trail on the mountain, according to Cappelli. He endured scratches and cuts from his fall but declined to receive treatment at a hospital.
“This family took another trail, closed to tourists, even if there was a small gate and ‘no access’ signs,” Cappelli added.
Mount Vesuvius’s crater is shaped like a cone and has a depth of about 1,000 feet and a diameter of roughly 1,500 feet. The volcano mostly recently erupted in 1944 and is still considered active, per the Vesuvius National Park website.
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Carroll was then taken into custody by local authorities, according to Cappelli. It is not clear what charges he faces.
In A.D. 79, the volcano famously buried the ancient Roman cities Pompeii and Herculaneum during a powerful eruption, covering the cities in ash and pumice. The site has since become a popular destination for tourists and archaeologists eager to observe the snapshot in time created by the volcano.
