A 23-year-old American tourist was rescued over the weekend after falling into the crater of Mount Vesuvius in Italy while taking a selfie. The man and his family hiked up the volcano from the town of Ottaviano and accessed the top through a forbidden trail.

The famous volcano, is notorious for destroying the city of Pompeii and blanketing it with ash in A.D. 79, and is the only volcano on the European mainland to have erupted in the past 100 years (1944). Despite remaining calm since its last eruption, Mount Vesuvius is still classified as an active volcano and occasionally experiences shaking from below ground earthquake activity and gas venting from its summit.

The man, identified as Philip Carroll, along with two family members reached the top of the over 4,000-feet-high volcano on Saturday. Carroll stopped to take a selfie and his phone fell into the crater according to Paolo Cappelli, the president of the Presidio Permanente Vesuvio, a base at the top of Vesuvius from where guides operate.

“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,” Cappelli said.

“He was very lucky. If he kept going, he would have plunged 300 meters into the crater,” he said.

Carroll reportedly suffered minor injuries and had to be rescued by local guides who abseiled into the crater. He could face charges for taking a route closed to the public.