The story behind that photo: Mt. St. Helens Eruption on May 18, 1980

This picture took was the one with the Pinto cocked in the road and the bent motorcycle still in the back with that HUGE cloud going up in the sky in the background.

(Cooper or Lasher may have conflated this part of the story with the fate of Robert Landsberg, a newspaper photographer who, upon realizing he wouldn't be able to escape the eruption after photographing it, carefully rewound his film, packed away his camera gear, and laid over the gear to preserve his shots.)

He made his way back down the mountain after being quickly overtaken by the ash cloud. He was completely blinded, and had to drive on the opposite side of the road steering by staying right on the opposite side of the road heading into oncoming traffic, but encountered nobody going up. The car choked out after a while and he rode his bent motorcycle out of the mountains back to the room he had rented.

That, however, wasn't the end of Lasher's story.
The next day as soon as he could, he rode his motorcycle back up into the now really hot zone with his camera to get what pics he could. He was well into the red no go zone, when a helicopter saw him, and came right down and landed in his path. He was surprised to be arrested on the spot and flown out in the chopper and to jail. They left his motorcycle lay on the mountain. They also kept him in jail for a few days without letting him call anyone or even plead his case. When he finally got out, he again went back up there, (Not sure how) and was able to get his motorcycle back and I think later his car as well.

Some of those photos that Lasher ended up taking of the aftermath, according to Cooper and fellow former co-worker Steven Firth, focused on those who didn't make it out alive and on the automotive wreckage they left behind. Both Cooper and Firth recalled Lasher showing them photos of burned-out vehicles with puddles of melted plastic underneath.So, yes, the photographer behind that mystery photograph did survive to see it widely disseminated. Whatever became of the Pinto and the Yamaha, however, i don't know.