Volcano Death

The body of a man who died after falling 1,500 feet into a volcano, when ice gave way while he was posing for a photograph, has been recovered by would-be rescue services. “Clouds and wind had hampered efforts to reach Joseph Bohlig, 52, who was posing for a picture Monday on the rim of the dormant crater when a snow overhang gave way and he fell into the volcano. ‘We’re sorry that he’s gone, that he didn’t make it,’ said Richard Bohlig, the climber’s 84-year-old father. ‘He was doing something he enjoyed very much. That’s all I can say.’ Family members had gathered in Bohlig’s hometown of Kelso, Wash., to await word on the search. Earlier in the day, Bohlig said his son was an avid mountaineer who had climbed peaks in many countries, but Mount St. Helens was his home mountain. ‘He used to go up even before the eruption as a child, play in the snow and that,’ he said. A Navy helicopter found Bohlig on its second pass of the day at the mountain. The weather cleared long enough to spot his body, which had been partially covered by snowfall, Skamania County Undersheriff David Cox said. Cox said an autopsy would be conducted to determine if Bohlig died of injuries, hypothermia or a combination of factors.”