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.
no matter how much I read this story it always makes me shudder.