Maryland tourist falls into Mount Vesuvius in Italy while taking a selfie and survives

ITALY — A 23-year-old Maryland tourist fell into Mount Vesuvius in Italy while taking a selfie and survived.

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According to CNN, a 23-year-old man from Baltimore, Maryland was hiking an unauthorized trail with some relatives on Saturday morning by Mount Vesuvius. The man fell into the crater of Mount Vesuvius trying to retrieve his phone, Italian police told CNN.

NBC News identified the man as Philip Carroll. The family was about 4,000 feet up the volcano when Carroll stopped to take a selfie and dropped his phone.

According to NBC News, Paolo Cappelli, the president of the Presidio Permanente Vesuvio — a base at the top of Vesuvius where guides operate from, said that Mount Vesuvius is a famous volcano “notorious for destroying the Roman city of Pompeii and blanketing in ash in A.D. 79.”

Cappelli also told NBC News that if Carroll had kept going, he would have “plunged 300 meters into the crater.”

Carroll survived the fall with a few bruises on his hands and back, according to CNN. He was treated at the scene and refused to go to the hospital.

CNN said that per the Vesuvius National Park website, the last eruption of Mount Vesuvius was in 1944 and the volcano remains active.

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