A Norwegian YouTuber reportedly died after falling into a lake while on a filming trip — just days after celebrating his 57th birthday in a video

• The YouTuber Tor Eckhoff, or "apetor," died after falling in an icy lake, his reported partner said.
• Eckhoff had over 1.2 million subscribers on YouTube, where he documented his many travels.

The Norwegian YouTuber known as "apetor," whose real name is Tor Eckhoff, died after he fell into an icy lake while on a trip to film a video, according to local reports and a Facebook post from his reported partner.

The 57-year-old died on Saturday after he walked over ice and fell into the water at Jakobs Dam near the town of Kongsberg on Friday, according to the Norwegian outlet Verdans Gang.

Eckhoff had over 1.2 million subscribers and 389 million views on YouTube, where he documented his various travels to different parts of Norway, often skating on frozen lakes and showing clips of wildlife and scenic vistas.

Eckhoff's last video, uploaded on November 22, is titled "I am Not Dead, I am 57 Today," written in English. Over the last 5 years since he was 53, the YouTuber uploaded a video on his birthday with a similar title celebrating his age.

Verdens Gang reported that Eckhoff lived with Tove Skjerven, who wrote in a Facebook post on the "apetor" Facebook page on Sunday that Eckhoff was on a trip to film himself ice skating for a video.

Skjerven wrote in the post, which is written in English, that divers had rescued Eckhoff from the cold water and he was transported to the hospital. Despite attempts to save his life, he died on Saturday after doctors "turned off all the machines that had kept your body going," Skjerven wrote.

In a series of tweets translated from Norwegian that appeared to be about Eckhoff, Norway's South-East Police District wrote on Saturday that firefighters had rescued a man in his 50s in Kongsberg who had fallen through the ice into the water and that a rescue helicopter was bringing the person to the Ullevål hospital.

The South-East Police District did not respond to a request for comment.

In his YouTube channel's "About" section, Eckhoff wrote that he was born in 1964, lived in the coastal city of Sandefjord, and worked in a paint factory. He wrote on the page that he reached his first 200,000 subscribers in August 2018 and hit 1 million followers last December. According to the page, the channel was created in October 2006, only a year after the platform launched in 2005.

In his last video, which has garnered over 1 million videos and 57,000 likes, Eckhoff cheerily drank alcohol and walked around outside kissing a tree and laying in a tub of murky water. The comments are flooded with people mourning him, saying they're reminiscing on all the time they spent watching his videos and wishing he "rest in peace."

Eckhoff was also popular on Instagram, where he had 66,000 followers and shared snapshots of his travels.

Skjerven did not respond to a request for comment.