Man dies in fall as he tries to takes photo on Alpine summit

BERLIN (AP) — A man has died after falling from a peak in the Austrian Alps as he was trying to take a photo of a companion with whom he had reached the summit, police said Tuesday.

The 77-year-old German and his companion, a 63-year-old Spanish woman, hiked to the Greitspitze — a peak about 2,870 meters (9,400 feet) above sea level on the Austrian-Swiss border — on Sunday, police in Tyrol province said.

The man took a picture of the woman next to the cross marking the summit, then stepped back to take a photo from further away, they said in a statement. He lost his balance after apparently failing to notice that he was already close to the edge and fell down a roughly 60-meter (197-foot) rock face, sustaining fatal injuries.

Rescue services were alerted by a witness who was also at the summit at the time. The man’s body was recovered by a police helicopter.