On Monday afternoon, 52-year old hiker Joseph Bohlig was posing for a picture on the rim of the dormant crater on Mt. St. Helens, when a snow overhang he was standing on gave way beneath him and he fell around 1500 feet into the crater.

Rescue efforts were unfortunately suspended Monday evening, due to the high winds making it unsafe for rescuers to continue with their efforts. But as we mentioned in a previous post yesterday, authorities planned to resume the rescue efforts on Tuesday.

But according to nationalledger.com, the rescue attempts unfortunately failed. Bohlig may have survived the fall, but he just couldn’t last for the rescuers. Lt. Brooks Crawford of the US Coast Guard said that when he tried to rescue him on Monday, Bohlig was buried in snow.

Crawford, who was one of the two pilots that attempted to rescue Bohlig on Monday evening, said that they were 300 feet above the hiker and saw his arms, legs and head, but saw no movement at all. He then said there was no signal to indicate that he was okay.

The latest reports from CNN say that a US Naval helicopter lifted the body of Bohlig from the south crater wall at 2:45 pm local time, and flew it to Carson, Washington. His body will then be transported to the Clark County Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy.

Leave a comment below or follow us on Twitter.