How This US Cave Became A Tomb For Man Who Got Trapped Upside Down And Died — His Body Is Still Inside
Nutty Putty Cave was a popular tourist attraction in Utah until 2009, when 26-year-old John Edward Jones got trapped in a crevice and died despite rescue efforts. The cave is now his memorial.
2009 Nutty Putty Cave Story: Nutty Putty Cave, the geological wonder known for its intricate labyrinth of hydrothermal passages and tight squeezes in the rugged landscape of Utah, once drew adventurous spelunkers from across the United States and beyond. The cave would reportedly draw up to 5,000 people annually, most of them cave exploration enthusiasts. But the popular tourist attraction stands silent today, and sealed, in a somber reminder of the perils of exploration.
The Nutty Putty Cave was closed in 2009 after a harrowing incident. The 2009 story of the cave, or that of 26-year-old John Edward Jones, serves both as a cautionary tale and also as a testament to the dedication of rescue teams in the face of adversity.
The story may bear similarity to the plot of Malayalam hit Manjummel Boys, which revolved around a 2006 cave exploration by a group of young men in Kerala when one of them got stuck inside with little hope of making his way out. The Manjummel Boys were, however, able to bring back their friend Subhash alive.
John wasn’t that lucky.
After remaining trapped for more than 26 hours in a crevice of the Utah cave, he died even as a massive rescue team tried to save him with all their might.
On November 24, 2009, John Edward Jones tragically lost his life in the Nutty Putty cave following a harrowing 28-hour ordeal.
— Fascinating (@fasc1nate) May 26, 2024
While exploring with his brother Josh, Jones accidentally entered a constricted tunnel, mistaking it for another tight passage known as the "Birth… pic.twitter.com/U9rkB1znts
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What Happened With John Edward Jones At Nutty Putty Cave In 2009?
On November 24, 2009, John reportedly entered the Nutty Putty Cave at around 6 pm with a group of 11-odd people. Among them was his brother Josh too.
Quoting the local sheriff's office, a CNN report from November 2009 said it was around 8.45 pm when John got stuck in a "tightly confined" space, called "Bob's Push”, inside the cave.
The cave had narrow areas inside where visitors had to reportedly crawl on their bellies to get through, the report said, quoting the cave’s official website that has since been shut down.
The CNN report said John was trapped upside down in a crevice about 18 inches wide and around 10 inches high. Located about 150 ft below the surface level, the crevice was nearly 700 ft from the entrance of the cave.
John was “wedged in the cave, held in place like a hook, unable to move without causing serious harm to himself”, according to a report in Mirror.co.uk.
While a massive rescue team was deployed, the attempt was “incredibly difficult and perilous”, and they could not free John from the position despite all possible efforts, the report said, adding that the team had used a sophisticated rope-and-pulley system to pull out John but a pulley failed.
Animation showing how John Edward Jones became trapped and died inside Nutty Putty Cave in 2009. pic.twitter.com/8vvxuQfCoT
— Morbid Knowledge (@Morbidful) April 19, 2024
If old media reports collated by a website are to be believed, there were similar incidents in the past too, but rescuers had been able to save the trapped spelunkers.
In the case of John, the rescue team who tried to reach him for more than 24 hours had problems navigating the terrain, according to the CNN report.
"It is a tightly confined space. When there is movement, it is literally millimeters at a time," Utah County sheriff's then spokesman Sergeant Spencer Cannon was quoted as saying.
"They (the rescuers) had him to a level spot where he wasn't heading downhill with his head below his feet," he said, adding: "During the course of that, they have a raising system to hold him in position, and one of the devices of that system failed, and Mr. Jones actually fell back to the area where he had been stuck for so long."
The rescue team had got “close enough” to John by November 25 midnight, but only to find that he was not breathing anymore.
According to the Mirror report, the strain had become unbearable for his body and he ultimately suffered a cardiac arrest.
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What Happened To John’s Body?
John was in a "straight up and down" — an angle of around 160-170 degrees — position, according to Cannon, who told ABC.com that rescue options were very limited due to the hard rock and narrow walls.
Explaining what happens to a person in such a situation, an expert who ABC reached out to said John would have found it very difficult to even breathe in that condition.
Dr Wendy Wright, then an assistant professor of neurology and neurosurgery at Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital, was quoted as saying that people in such a position would most likely die of suffocation.
"The rib cage is built from the top-down so the lungs expand into the body cavity," Dr Wright said. But if someone is in an upside-down position, she added, the lungs “work against the weight of your liver, of your intestines and the breathing muscles have a difficult time overcoming that”.
After confirming that John was not alive, the rescue officials met on November 26 to decide on how to recover his body from the tight space.
However, they had to finally take a tough decision, in consultation with the grieving family of the 1983-born Stansbury Park resident. John was survived by his wife and two children, according to reports.
It was concluded that retrieving John's body would not be easy, and hence a decision was taken to leave the body inside, and permanently seal the cave, the Mirror reported.
The ceiling of the cave where John's body lay was made to collapse using explosives, and the entrance hole jammed with concrete a few days later to prevent any future access to the place.
Sealed since December 2009, the cave is now a memorial to John’s tragic death.
The 2016 film, 'The Last Descent', is based on the Nutty Putty Cave tragedy.
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