John Edward Jones died in such a shocking manner that a once popular caving system was closed to the public indefinitely, preventing any possibility of a similar tragedy ever happening again.
His death – which would later become known as the Nutty Putty Cave Incident – occurred on November 24, 2009, when he and a group of cavers entered the Nutty Putty Cave in Utah.
What was supposed to be a fun pre-Thanksgiving excursion turned into a real-life horror film, as John would never resurface – trapped forever in a tunnel reported to be “no wider than the opening of a washing machine”.
The 26-year-old was preparing to welcome his second child at his time of death. He was a fairly experienced caver – however, it had been a couple of years since his last adventure and he’d never ventured into the famously twisty Nutty Putty before.
On that final, fateful trip, the medical student entered the cave alongside 10 other friends and family members, including his brother Josh.
The group began their exploration in a large room known as the ‘Big Slide’. During their adventure, John, Josh, and two other pals broke away from the others in search of ‘Birth Canal’ tunnel – a more challenging passage notorious for being a tight squeeze. It was then that John made a fatal error.
As detailed in the chilling report in The Salt Lake Tribune, John squeezed his way into a tunnel that was an uncomfortably tight fit for his 6ft, 200lb frame. He pushed on however, knowing that the claustrophobic Birth Canal would eventually widen out, allowing him to turn around.
However, this is when John made the mistake of venturing out of the Birth Canal – a popular, well-trodden route for daredevil cavers. Instead, he had inadvertently crawled inside an unmapped passage that led to nowhere.
In 2004, in another incident, a caver became stuck inside this very same tunnel, but had thankfully been rescued with the help of a pulley system. Sadly, John had crawled some 14ft further on than they had, and was significantly taller and broader.
Eventually, John’s horizontal crawl took a vertical dip, and he found himself going downwards head-first. It was then that he realised he was completely wedged in, the hard, unforgiving rock pressing in all around, with no room to turn or push backwards to safety.
Recalling the moment their family adventure took a horror turn, Josh, who was following close behind feet first, told the Tribune: “Seeing his feet and seeing how swallowed he was by the rock, that’s when I knew it was serious. It was really serious.”
The two brothers, who were committed to their Mormon faith, prayed together, and Josh attempted to pull John out by wrapping his feet around his calves. Yet with nothing to grab onto, John slipped back into the crevice the second Josh released his grip. Josh had no choice but to leave his brother and resurface, contacting emergency services for help.
A desperate rescue attempt began. The first to arrive at the scene was local resue volunteer Susie Motola, who promised John “You’re going to be out of here lickety split”. She tied a rope around John’s ankles, which she then strung back to the rest of the team waiting at the entrance of the passage.
To their alarm, the friction of the rope against the stone made pulling John out impossible. Susie tried everything she could, attempting to shift John’s position and even taking off his jeans to create a fraction more space. She kept his spirits up by joking that she’d certainly have a tale to tell his then-pregnant wife, Emily Jones-Sanchez.
In the hours that followed, the rescue party members and emergency services desperately tried to think of ways to retrieve John alive. A plan was soon devised to pull him to the surface using a system made of ropes and pulleys. This took some time to prepare, however, and all the while, John was stuck upside down in the same position he’d been in for a number of hours.
Initially, it seemed as though the system could be the answer, and the team began slowly pulling John free. In a sickening turn of events, however, a pulley failed during the extrication process, and John plummeted right back into issue. After having spent an agonising 27 to 28 hours imprisoned inside the crevice, John went into fatal cardiac arrest.
It was concluded that any attempt to retrieve John’s body would be far too dangerous and so explosives were used to collapse the ceilings to the passage, creating a makeshift tomb. All entrances to the cave were also then sealed off, in the hopes of preventing history from ever repeating itself.