At around 8:00pm on the 24th of november 2009
John Edward Jones, an avid amateur caver, entered the Nutty Putty caves just south
of Salt Lake City in Utah. He was accompanied by a large group of
family and friends - it was, after all, just before
Thanksgiving. The trip was intended to be a brief
adventure that they could share before the holiday.
What it turned into was a living nightmare
that would cost John Edward Jones his life.
The Nutty Putty Caves were first discovered in 1960,
and were named for the soft brown clay which lined many of the passages.
The system consisted of dozens of rooms connected by narrow
low-ceilinged corridors. Although it required a great deal of
wriggling and crawling to navigate it was considered a good cave system for
beginners, and was visited by thousands each year.
Those visitors could enjoy features which included The Big Slide,
a room wherein the floor descended at a 45-degree angle.
There was also The Maze - a confusing jumble of
tiny chambers and tight corridors that were fun to explore,
and contained a hollow rock that was said to ring like a bell when struck.
As supposedly beginner-friendly as the caves were
they weren't without issue. From 1999 to 2004 a number of people,
including two boy scouts, became stuck in tight
or narrow parts of the caves and had to be rescued by professionals.
These incidents led to some changes in the way the cave was managed.
After being gated for a number of years the caves were reopened
with a registration system in place. Groups would have to book online to
ensure that cave management knew who was down there, and the caves
wouldn't be overly crowded at any one point in time.
That was the situation when John Edward Jones and his friends and family
entered the Nutty Putty Caves on the 24th of November
2009. Amongst the group was John's brother, Josh.
Between them the two siblings had a great deal of caving experience. During
their childhood they had gone on numerous underground
adventures across the state of Utah, although they had never before visited
the Nutty Putty Caves.
For almost an hour the trip went well. The group crawled,
scrambled, and inched their way through the caverns, delighted by each new
discovery. At around 9:00pm John found what he thought
was the entrance to Birth Canal, a well-known stretch of the caves so
named because of how tight and narrow it was.
The passageway which confronted John certainly fitted that description.
He squeezed inside and wriggled forward. When the narrow crevice took a downward
turn he hesitated for only a moment. The narrow space looked as though it
might open out a little bit further down, and
besides he was sure that he was in Birth Canal -
a passage which he knew could be safely navigated
if he just kept his nerve.
Unfortunately John wasn't in Birth Canal after all.
Instead he was wriggling head first down an
uncharted tunnel in a different part of the caves -
a tunnel that had never been charted specifically because
it was far too small.
Unaware of the danger John crawled onwards... until he couldn't.
When he realized he was stuck he was head down in an almost
vertical passage the diameter of which was
smaller than a front-loading washing machine.
He couldn't move an inch.
John's brother Josh was close behind him and soon realized something was wrong.
When he learned that John was stuck he first attempted to pull him out,
but was able only to shift him a few inches.
Realising that the situation was beyond them Josh
raced back out of the caves to fetch help while another friend waited by
John's side.
Within hours rescue teams were on site. They were faced with an intensely
difficult operation. It was now midnight and pitch black
outside the caves as well as in. The place where John was stuck was
incredibly narrow, meaning that however many resources were
available only one person could get close enough
to access him at any one time. John remained as calm as was possible
under the circumstances. Indeed, when the first rescue worker
arrived on scene he thanked them for coming and told them
that he, "Really, really wanted to get out."
Making that happen would prove to be next to impossible.
Rescue workers attempted to drill out the rock around John,
but were able only to widen one small part of the passage by a few inches,
even after hours of labor.
Abandoning this idea they rigged up a system of ropes and pulleys,
securing a loop around John's legs (the only part of him that they could reach)
they started the slow and painful process of hauling him out.
At first it seemed like this tactic might succeed.
They were able to raise him a significant distance out of the vertical
crevice in which he was stuck, although doing so caused John
a great deal of pain. While they stopped to rest a radio was
lowered down to John so that he could communicate with his
pregnant wife, who waited for him outside the caves.
At this stage John had been stuck in place for 19
hours - almost an entire day spent upside down
in a space so small that breathing was difficult.
Being upside down for that length of time is not a trivial inconvenience.
It causes blood to pool in the head where it can
rupture a blood vessel or put so much pressure on the
eyes that it causes blindness. The organs lie heavily on top of the
lungs, resulting in breathing difficulties
and often unconsciousness. For some people being suspended upside
down for as little as 10 minutes can be fatal.
John had been stuck that way for almost an entire
day.
Despite this he remained quite calm. After several more pulls
he was high enough that he could make eye contact with one of the rescuers.
When asked how he was faring he said only,
"It sucks. I'm upside down. I can't believe I'm upside down.
"My legs are killing me."
At this stage, exhausted and in agony, as John was,
the possibility of escape must have seemed like a very real one.
An escape from his confinement, medical attention,
contact with his friends and family... all of these things were so close they must
have been almost tangible to him. It was
at this point that everything went wrong.
As the rescuers hauled once more on the rope something
gave way explosively. The rescuer closest to John
was hit in the face and briefly knocked unconscious.
When he recovered all he could see was dust and darkness.
It took several minutes for him to orient himself and work out the terrible
truth: John had slipped right back down into the
crevice from which they'd been hauling him.
What had happened? A stone arch around which the rope had been looped
had shattered, and the next nearest bolt had pulled out of the rock,
creating slack in the rope and allowing John to fall.
The bolt was what had hit the rescuer in the face and knocked him unconscious.
The injured rescuer was evacuated from the cave for treatment,
and a replacement wriggled into the narrow defile.
They spoke to john but could get no response, and could hear that his
breathing was labored and shallow. Desperate, they wriggled down into the
narrow cave to try and loop another rope around his waist...
but became stuck themselves and had to be helped back out.
A doctor was escorted down into the caves to assess John as best he could.
The news was the worst that there could possibly be:
John had passed away. Despite a day-long rescue effort involving
dozens of workers, the confinement and the inversion had
taken its toll. He was declared dead at midnight on
November 25th.
His friends and family, needless to say, were devastated by the news.
John was just 26 at the time, fit and healthy,
and with a child on the way his loss in a cave system considered
relatively safe for beginners was a shock to everyone.
It was quickly determined that any operation to retrieve his body would be
impossibly difficult and dangerous. The landowner, appalled by the incident,
initially wished to dynamite the caves, destroying them completely... but was
dissuaded from doing so.
Instead the caves were sealed shut with a concrete plug,
turning them into a tomb for John Edward Jones.
A plaque was installed at the entrance to memorialize the final resting place
of an exceptional young man, lost way before his time.