John Jones - Caver Dies While Exploring Cave with Family in Utah

cave exploring also called spelunking or potholing is a pastime made for risk seeking adventurers who aren't afraid to trek through some of the darkest most unmanageable places on earth exploring a natural cave system and conquering its obstacles is just another exhilarating way for these adventurers to push their potential and feel closer to mother nature but as with all dangerous hobbies the chance of death is always looming and whether novice or expert the simplest mistake may just be her end on November 24th 2009 John Edward Jones was visiting family and Stansberry Park Utah for Thanksgiving the family decided to do some cave exploring like they used to when John was a kid they chose a popular location they'd ever been to before called nutty putty which was named after the soft brown clay lining the caves interior around 8:00 p.m. John entered the cave with 10 other friends and family members and began exploring a large chamber known as the big slide soon after John and his brother Josh split from the group with two other friends to find a more challenging section of the cave called the birth canal when the four decided to go separate ways to look for it John picked a waist-high hole to explore and went in headfirst he found no place big enough to turn his body around and leave the tunnel so he kept going John eventually saw a fissure that dropped nearly straight down in front of him which may have appeared to widen out at the bottom giving him a spot to turn around rescuers believe John sucked in his chest to investigate the fissure sliding a store so over a lip of rock and down into the 10 inch wide side of the crevice but when his chest expanded again he was stuck instead of widening so John could get out the crack grew smaller and all but closed struggling to free himself only made John slide deeper into an even tighter eating a half-inch wide section of the fissure one arm pinned underneath him the other forced backward by an outcropping of rock his headlamp was also knocked off when John's brother Josh heard his older brother was stuck he made his way down the waist-high tunnel to help him but after getting stuck himself in a section known as the corkscrew and seeing how far his brother was wedged in the crevice Josh knew they had a serious problem John was almost completely upside down with only his feet and about six inches of his legs sticking out of the tight opening Josh attempted to pull him out but soon realized they would need help to free his brother he told John he was calling for help they made a friend stay with his brother as he made the journey out of the cave to alert emergency services when he was sure help was on the way Josh made his way back to where John was stuck and took the friend's place by his brother's side the Mormon brothers passed the time by praying and talking about Josh's plans for the future just before midnight over three hours after John had first gotten stuck members of the rescue team began arriving it took rescuers about 30 minutes to reach the tunnel where Jones was stuck around 12:30 rescue team volunteer members Suzie Mottola reached Don and greeted him with hi John my name is Suzy how's it going John's replies sounded distant hi Suzie thanks for coming but I really really want to get out oh no worries John she told him you're going to be out of here lickety-split as Suzy analyzed the situation though she knew it was not going to be an easy task the six-foot 200-pound Jones was encased upside down by a tight crevasse except for a small section of his legs and feet but Rudy now the human body is designed to walk upright and the heart works with the force of gravity not against it when rescuers told Trauma physician Doug Murdock that John was nearly upside down he knew the trapped man didn't have time being upside down your body has to pump the blood out of the brain all the time he said your body isn't set up to do that the entire system starts to fail murdock headed for the scene knowing blood and fluids would be pooling in John's brain and lungs his circulation would be slowing capillaries leaking and toxins building up in his blood if the rescuers were to free John those toxins could rush to his heart and kill him there are very few studies about the long-term effects of being upside down but Murdock thought John might have eight to ten hours to live they attempted to tie a rope around John's legs and pull him out but the friction of the rope on the rocks of the cave walls was just too great the small space they had to work with and the depth that John was stuck also made using big equipment impossible many chisels and a drill were used to widen parts of the cave however the smaller tools were not working fast enough they then began constructing a pulley system out of climbing camps but each trip into the tunnel to pass a piece of equipment took nearly an hour the rescue team did their best to keep John comfortable by singing religious hymns and keeping conversation but as the hours passed rescuers began to hear John's voice grow nasally and his breathing labored as fluids began to slowly fill his lungs when they finally got the pulley system operational and began inching John out of the crevasse his feet hit the tunnels low ceiling with his heart struggling to pump blood into his legs the contact made him scream in pain that's when the rescuers came to a horrible realization the angle of the tunnel meant they couldn't bend John's body backwards without likely breaking his legs in his weakened state the shock could kill him and the cams anchoring the pulleys were slipping from their places on the cave walls around 24 hours later they had made little progress and John was beginning to have a very difficult time breathing over 100 men and women worked tirelessly to free John from his prison unfortunately 27 hours into the rescue Jones became unresponsive just before midnight on Wednesday November 25th John Jones was declared dead the 26-year old medical student left behind his wife family a one-year-old daughter named Elizabeth and another child that was expected to be born in June of 2010 after his death the nutty-buddy cave was closed and the entrance was eventually sealed with cement with John's body still inside

Channel: Horror Stories

Views: 14,150,725

Rating: 4.8449187 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: WaIoXN-7FjM

Length: 6min 17sec (377 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 08 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/yeesCubanB]

Rescuers believe John sucked in his chest to investigate the

back

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burn phone

[u/[deleted]]

I would rather fuck myself with a house than watch this video.

[u/adm_shiza]

Things I rather do then go spelunking.

sky diving, climbing mount everest, roman candle fighting, jousting, rock climbing without a safety cord, pretending to be a blood towards some crips, re-enacting the shame scene from Game of Thrones.

fuck caves.

[u/sonofgarybusey]

Oh god, how horrible. I couldn't even finish the video.

[u/jevidon]

Nope.

[u/fprintf]

I can't watch more than a minute of this video. Every time I watch these it just creeps me out that anyone would intentionally wiggle themselves into a hole that they might get stuck in.

[u/westc2]

There's a video of a group going through this same cave system before this all happened and it's fucking crazy. At one point the dude basically has to wiggle like a worm through this narrow round tunnel because it's too small to even put his arms back. He tries to crawl using his fingers. They made it out okay though.

[u/[deleted]]

why the fuck would anybody want to do this. Even when things go according to plan, and you navigate a cave system safely, what exactly is the draw? what's so good about being in a dark hole? you'd think it must be amazing for people to even consider taking the risk but i cannot think of one thing that would make it fun.

[u/road_to_nowhere]

Obligatory link to the Ted the Caver story.