Trespassing Tourists Manage To Fall Into Legendary Volcano Mount Vesuvius

One American tourist somehow managed to barely cheat death while paying a visit to the legendary Mount Vesuvius in Italy after he managed to drop his phone into the mouth of the volcano while trying to get a selfie and then fell in after it attempts to reach for it, read reports about the incident.

The tourist in question, aged 23, was finally yanked out of the once-fiery mouth and was treated for lesser injuries, but is now looking down the barrel of quite a few criminal charges for being on a path around the volcano that has been closed to the public. Local guides for the area were forced to rappel down into the mouth to rectrive him, and a helicopter was forced to take him to a local hospital for treatment when the incident took place on the 9th of July.

Three other people that were with the man at the time are also looking at serious disciplinary charges for “invasion of public lands,” after they allegedly scaled to the top of the 4,000-foot volcano without purchasing any tickets and then chose to make use of a path that was marked as closed and forbidden. Reports about the incident claim that the man was taking a selfie when he managed to lose his grip on the phone.

When the ancient volcano erupted, back in the year 79, the decimated the ancient Roman cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. The volcano is still thought to be one of the most dangerous in the world because of its location next to heavily populated areas such as Naples, in which there is a population of over 700,000.

The volcano has not seen any major incidents outside of a singular blast back in 1944, but is still considered to be active and occasionally spits out steam and gases. The crater at the summit is the most dangerous area due to the walls being especially steep cliffs with scattered volcanic rock fragments making foots treacherous.

Historically, volcanoes are quite deadly even without the need to erupt. Back in 2017, a young boy and both of his parents died when they all fell into the crater of Solfatara di Pozzuoli, which is just one of the group of volcanoes scattered in the Campi Flegrei area next to Naples. The boy reportedly passed out due to the volcanic gas fumes and fell in. When his parents attempted to save him, the crater edge collapsed, taking them as well.

Additionally, in 2019, one 32-year-old man was severely injured in the wake of scaling a barrier set up around the crater of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano. He slipped on the gravel and fell roughly 70 feet down, from which he was rescued.  And in January, a much older man, aged 75, fell into the same crater and died as a result.

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