​GoPro Camera Gets Swallowed By Lava – And Survives To Show The Tale

People with hard-wearing GoPro cameras have been able to capture some seriously amazing things over the years, whether it's a school of fish swimming underwater, some sweet skateboarding tricks or even a bungee jump. Usually though, let's face it, it's just you mucking about with your mates.

However, Erik Storm, lead guide of Kilauea EcoGuides in Hawaii, is able to trump all of that with his GoPro story - after his camera was not only engulfed by blazing hot volcanic lava, but also survived the ordeal. Oh, and it filmed the whole thing, too.

And it looks sick.

Recently when out on a tour, he placed his GoPro camera into a crack between some rocks to film lava flowing - though hadn't intended for the lava to get quite so close. So close, in fact, that the thing even caught on fire.

"I was telling a story when the molten lava completely engulfed my GoPro (with housing on) and it caught on fire," Storm told PetaPixel. "I used a geology rock hammer to pull it out of the lava and thought it was a total loss."

Miraculously, it wasn't a total loss. Storm took the camera home and hammered off its newly-formed rock casing, which had by now cooled down. It was then that he found the WiFi light on the camera was still blinking, almost as though the camera was saying, 'I'm still alive, buddy!'

Pulling the SD card out the camera, he also found out that the incredible footage was still intact - including the very moment that the GoPro was engulfed by the lava and burst into flames.

Erik Storm / PetaPixel

And the best bit? After all that, the camera itself wasn't even bust.

"The camera even still worked, although not as well as it did before," Storm said. "Truly amazing it survived!"

According to PetaPixel, this isn't Storm's only melting camera encounter, either, having once taken photographer Erez Marom out on private land to capture lava flow. On this occasion, Marom accidentally melted the camera on his $1,500 (£1,121) DJI Phantom 4 drone - but again, unbelievably the drone is still functional.

"The drone is perfectly usable and flies perfectly," Marom told PetaPixel. "Other than the plastic surrounding the camera being molten, it's the same as before."

Massive props to both guys for going above and beyond - and underneath - molten lava.

Topics: World News, camera, News, Technology

Jess Hardiman

Jess is a journalist at LADbible who graduated from Manchester University with a degree in Film Studies, English Language and Linguistics - indecisiveness at its finest, right there. She also works for FOODbible and its sister page Seitanists, which are both a safe haven for her to channel a love for homemade pasta, fennel and everything else in between. You can contact Jess at [email protected].

@Jess_Hardiman