John Edward Jones was a 26 year-old father who in 2009 decided to spend some time off from work in Utah with his family. During his stay, the family decided to go ‘spelunking’, a term used to describe the activity of crawling into deep, tight caves underneath the Earth’s surface at the nearby ‘Nutty Putty’ cave system.
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See a photo of that cave system below….
John and his family descended into 30 inch entrance of the Nutty Putty cave system just outside of Salt Lake City on November 24th, 2009, unaware that John would never return to the surface.
A Simple Mistake
Upon entering the cave, John Jones found a passage that he thought was called ‘the Birth Canal’. See a photo of a woman in that ‘Birth Canal’ passage below…
Unknown to John, he had not entered the passage seen above. He had actually instead found a smaller tunnel in the are of the cave known as ‘Ed’s Push’.
John moved into the passage head-first, using his fingers to inch forward. After inching his way forward, John discovered that he was unable to make any kind of turn to get out. In an attempt to push forward to find space to turn around, John pulled himself through a 10 inch by 10 inch passage.
In order to fit through the incredibly small space, John inhaled. Once through the passage, John exhaled, making his 6’1 body too large to even move at all.
A Slide Into Hell
As John attempts to wiggle and free himself from his tight position, he slides further and further down the passage way. His brother Josh attempt to pull at his calves to no avail.
The passage way is angled so sharply that as John slides, his body turns nearly completely upside down. Because of the smallness of the space he is in, he is unable to be assisted in any way. See a photo of John’s predicament below…
His arms became pinned underneath his chest. John was unable to do something as simple as scratch his face. Upside down in a dark cave.
Call For Help
Josh Jones, John’s brother, headed to the surface in order to call a rescue team to assist his brother. Being 400 ft into the cave, every entrance and exit took at least 30 minutes.
It would take over an hour for any rescue team to get equipment to where John was located in the cave.
Once crews eventually reached John, a small member of their team was able to establish contact with him. “I really want to get out”, said John.
Eventually rescuers tied a rope to Jones’ leg. They attempted to anchor a pulley system to the walls of the cave, using several pulleys to pull the weight of John through the small space.
Being at such a steep angle, John’s legs were pulled upwards. Jones experienced a sharp, excruciating pain in his legs because his heart, which was operating upside down for several hours, was struggling to pump blood through his body.
Rescuers realized that they could not bend John backwards through the cave without breaking both of his legs. Because of his prolonged time upside down, this action likely would have killed John immediately.
After a final pulley system with 15 points failed, dropping John on his head in the cavern once again, John became unresponsive.
27 Hours of Hell
After John was unresponsive for several hours, rescuers declared him dead. They were unable to rescue Jones from the cave which he entered so innocently.
A Paramedic crawled into the cave on November 25th, 2009 at 11:56 pm and pronounced John Jones dead. John’s 27 Hours of hell came to an end.
See a video summing up this tragedy below…
Nutty Putty Sealed Forever
After this tragic incident, the Nutty Putty caves were sealed forever. John’s body still remains in the same place he was initially stuck. A horrifying reality.
The Salt Lake Tribune reported on the sealing of Nutty Putty….
The mouth of Nutty Putty Cave was sealed with concrete Thursday, turning the cavern’s 1,400 feet of chutes and tunnels into the final resting place of 26-year-old John Jones.
Jones became stuck in the Utah County cave Nov. 25 and died after a 27-hour effort by more than 135 rescuers to free him from a crevice.
The Utah County Public Works Department used explosives earlier this week to collapse part of the cave’s ceiling, blocking an entrance deep inside near where Jones’ body remains stuck, said John Andrews, the chief legal counsel and associate director for the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, which owns the property.
On Thursday, the throat of the narrow cave, a 7-foot deep, 30-inch wide hole, was filled with concrete, Andrews said. Sheriff Jim Tracy told Andrews that no other parts of the cave were damaged while the cave was sealed.
https://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/ci_13919224
Let John’s story be a cautionary tale for all. May he rest in peace.