This article describes the Nutty Putty Cave accident in which a 26-year-old caver named John Jones tragically lost his life in 2009. His death is a sobering reminder of how dangerous caving can be and why we should follow safe caving practices at all times when spelunking.
The cave
Nutty Putty Cave (located in Utah, exact Google Maps location here) was first explored in 1960 and it quickly became famous for its narrow and slippery passageways, twists, turns and squeezes. Different parts of the cave are named accordingly – The Birth Canal, The Aorta Crawl, The Scout Eater, The Maze. Nutty Putty Cave is a hydrothermal cave, with a total surveyed length and depth of 1355 and 145 feet, respectively.
John Jones
John had had plenty of caving experience, but not recently – most of his spelunking was done when he was a kid – John’s father frequently took him and his younger brother Josh on caving trips all over Utah.
Josh wasn’t his only brother: John Edwards Jones was born into a big family of five boys and two girls, he also had 16 nieces and nephews. John was a devout Christian, and according to his family statement later, he was known for his “good nature, delightful sense of humor, strong work ethic, a genuine love of people, a masterful ability to relate to children, a love of and unwavering faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and his commitment to his family as an amazing husband, father, son and brother.”
At the time of the accident, John was studying to become a pediatric cardiologist, had recently become a father, and his wife was pregnant with their second child.
The accident
Entering the cave
On November 24, 2009, the brothers John and Josh decided to rekindle their love for caving and picked Nutty Putty Cave as their next conquest. It was 8 p.m. on Wednesday, just a few days before Thanksgiving when they arrived at the cave site. They weren’t alone: 9 more friends and acquaintances had joined them, so by caving standards, it was quite a large group that finally entered the Nutty Putty Cave.
Everything went smooth for an hour or so. The party had explored the largest room in the cave, aptly named the Big Slide. Soon, John, Josh, and two of their friends decided to take up a challenge they had heard about – namely passing through the Birth Canal, a narrow and challenging passageway that eventually opens up into a larger room. John went first: he wriggled forward for some time but did not see any larger area. He continued to inch forward, but the narrow passage did not come to an end; instead, the squeeze made a sharp downward turn. Confidently, John pressed forward, perhaps noticing the tunnel got wider at the bottom, but it was already too late.
It all went wrong 50 feet earlier. It is unclear from the conflicting sources on the internet whether John entered the Birth Canal and accidentally turned and wriggled into the Scout Eater or if he had missed the Birth Canal entirely and crawled into another passageway, just next to the Birth Canal, called Ed’s Push. Now, Ed’s Push does not lead to a larger room. It does not lead anywhere, at least nowhere a 6-foot 200-pound man can fit. Ed’s Push has four uncharted passageways at its end, but they are all too small for a human (if he instead pushed into the Scout Eater, it similarly has a small passageway that doesn’t lead anywhere). In any case, John kept pushing through until he couldn’t continue. To top things off, he had wriggled into a fissure that went nearly straight down, which made him unable to turn back on his own. The narrow crevice he was trapped in measured 10 by 18 inches. This size is comparable to the opening of a front-loading washing machine, except it wasn’t a perfect circle and he was stuck in the tightest part of the opening. Trapped more than 100 feet below the ground, and deep inside the cave, all John could do was wait and pray.
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The long wait
His brother Josh who was following him was the first one to find John. Anxious of how much the rock had swallowed John, Josh tried to pull him out but only managed to inch him up a little. As soon as he let John go, he slid right back into the crevice. John was stuck with one hand pinned underneath him, and the other forced backward. His ankles and feet were free but were of little use as gravity pushed him down. They both said a quick prayer, and Josh hurried back to the ground as fast as he could, slowly wiggling out of the tight passage and rushing to the surface. Once outside, he quickly called for help while their friend stayed with John.
The first person to arrive to help, Susan, was a local rescue volunteer who immediately dropped everything she was doing when she received the message on her rescue pager and rushed to the scene with her Toyota. She arrived sometime around midnight – it was now more than three hours since John had been trapped deep inside the cave. Small, agile, and quick, Susan took no time to reach John.
“Hi, John, my name is Susie. How’s it going?”
“Hi Susie, thanks for coming,” John said, “but I really, really want to get out.”
Within the next few hours, tens and tens of rescuers arrived. The rescue team quickly brainstormed a plan after a plan. They discussed everything – even lubing the walls of the cave – until they decided to use a rescue rope that passes through a series of climbing cams with one end of the rope tied around John’s legs and the other end pulled by the team. At the same time, they also tried drilling away chunks of rock near John, but the hard material and the awkward position made drilling a slow and painful work. In over an hour, they only managed to drill through a couple of inches of rock.
The position of John’s body also complicated things. He was trapped nearly upside down, only his feet were visible to the rescuers, and the ceiling above the feet hanged so low the rescuers couldn’t just pull him out as his feet would get in the way. Time passed as rescuers worked frantically and failed with their first system of climbing cams. They then tried to use a rope-pully system, anchoring the pullies with bolts, drilling the bolts deep in the cave walls.
Everything was made more difficult by how narrow the cave was. Even though there was a large team of rescuers, volunteers, emergency services, and a rescue helicopter outside, only one person could directly access John.
Meanwhile, John was doing worse – he had now been stuck upside down for a long time, having some difficulty breathing, and his heart had to work twice as hard against gravity to push the continuous blood flow out of his brain. He was swinging back and forth between panic and calmness.
At one point, they brought a two-way cable radio into the cave and managed to lower it to him so he could speak with his wife, who was near the cave entrance on the surface. They were both agitated but comforted each other.
John had now been trapped upside down for 19 hours.
Things start to look better
Everything changed when the rescuers finally finished installing their pully system and started pulling John out. They worked in an eight-men tandem, all tugging as one. John was at times in great pain, so they made frequent pauses. But each time they pulled, they managed to pull John up a bit more.
After pulling him upwards the third time, John was finally lifted high enough so that he could make eye contact with the rescuer closest to him. He looked tired, his eyes were red, and his face was dirty, but he seemed fine otherwise.
“How are you?”
“It sucks. I’m upside down. I can’t believe I’m upside down. My legs are killing me.”
The rescuer saw that even though John was complaining, he had a smile on his face.
They had another rest then decided to continue pulling John up. He was almost out.
Disaster strikes
When the rescue team pulled John upward for the fourth time, something happened.
The entire team fell backward as the rope suddenly went loose in their hands. The closest rescuer felt something hard hit his face, and he passed out for a second. When he came to, he saw nothing but dust. Once the dust settled a bit, he realized the stone arch near John’s legs where the rope was tied around had shattered, and the nearest key bolt had broken off. He couldn’t make out in the dust where exactly John was, but soon he realized – John had slid right down the crevice again, this time seemingly even deeper than before.
As the rescuer suffered severe facial injuries from the impact with a metal carabineer and couldn’t continue his rescue efforts, he had to switch places with his dad who was also on the rescue team. When he reached John, he realized that John’s breathing was much more shallow and less frequent, and he was struggling to stay alive. The rescuer called for John but received no response. Desperate, he tried to lower himself into the crevice to put the rope around John’s waist but got stuck himself. After finally wriggling himself free, he drilled a new hole for the pulley and crawled out of the cave, exhausted, to be replaced by yet another rescuer who reached John but couldn’t make contact with him.
Soon after, a medical professional crawled into the cave and reached John. At midnight, November 25, John was pronounced dead. He was 26 years old.
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A total of 137 rescuers worked hard for 27 hours to save John but had to leave the tragic site with empty hands and heavy hearts. One of them told the media this was his toughest rescue in his 29 years of being a search-and-rescue volunteer.
The next day, the authorities determined that it was too difficult and dangerous to get his body out of the cave, so Nutty Putty Cave will forever remain the final resting place for John Edwards Jones.
A week after, public authorities decided to close Nutty Putty Cave to the public permanently. It has been sealed ever since.
John’s family had a plaque put on the entrance of the cave in his memory.
This was horrible man. I cannot imagine how he must be feeling at the end
It could have been worse. He could have died alone in a papier mache dinosaur.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57226774
That’s a totally different thing my man
Or this guy getting stuck in a grocery store pillar
https://www.wcvb.com/amp/article/horrible-way-to-die-man-found-dead-inside-grocery-store-pillar/22712625
It’s a good thing that the cave was closed. People need to stop takinh unnecessary risks.
The risk is part of men.thousands gone into nutty putty…still alive.it was better to close that blind canal…or get a clear signal of danger. But it is out of American mind, you are the one responsable of your own actions…ever in a cave
I think it’s absurd that it’s closed. Tragedy can always befall those who yearn for adventure. It is the way of nature. That doesn’t mean people should stop adventuring.
There’s a dead body in it! That’s enough reason for it to be closed.
And what would happen if someone else got stuck for the same reasons? There would have been uproar.
There are tons of bodies on Mt. Everest and K2. Are we going to ban that too?
You can’t close a mountain, dumdum
how are you going to close a whole f***ing mountain???
I understand the need for adventure. Trouble is, when adventure goes wrong many people have to risk their lives to help. Some things in life can’t be avoided and rescuers are there to help, other things are for fun but risk rescuers lives.
They were unable to get his body out ! Of course it should be closed!
Why close it, leave the body, the smell with be the indicator of the wrong path. Save the next person.
May poor John rest in heaven with God. I hope this doesn’t happen to anyone else. Imagine being in a dark,narrow cave upside down. And being in extreme pain and nauseous. And when you’re almost saved you fall even deeper,making you give up.
I agree
I feel like when the bolt came loose and John dropped back down in he was knocked unconscious from the fall. For him to go from smiling to no response at all doesn’t make sense. With being upside down that long and to take a hard fall like that is what probably did him in.
I was thinking the same thing. He was becoming home free and then he got dropped suddenly on his head, probably with no helmet and with no hands to brace the impact. He may have passed out. And if he was cut and bled, the bleeding would be hard to stop because he was upside down for so long the blood rush to his head was probably pretty bad at that point. Just a horrible set of circumstances. It seems like if the rock would not have given way he would have lived because getting him out was slowly working and he could see them and smiled.
So sad for you. What kind of expectant father crawls into a narrow cave at 8 pm🙄
In his defense many people have gone through that cave and survived with nothing bad happening. He was just caught in the wrong moment and wrong time
It’s worse knowing his death was one of depraved indifference manslaughter. The cave area he died in was known to be very dangerous but nothing was done, no warnings on the map, no warnings underground, no sealing up the dangerous passages.
The cave management plan was a joke. A class of pre-schoolers could have faked their experience and qualifications to gain a permit to access the cave. There was zero effective oversight.
11 years on and those who were charged with the safety of Nutty Putty cavers are still content to accept no responsibility for the needless death of John and they maintain their blame the victim stance. With management like that it’s probably better if all Utah caves end up permanently sealed off.
I once saw a forum post from a Timpanogos grotto member saying this branch was intentionally left off the map to try to discourage people going through it. That makes no sense as a solution and in my opinion is completely unethical. I agree, from what I have seen many of the members of the group managing this cave had a terribly negative attitude toward public access.
How someone deals with grief and living past the death of a loved one is not for you to decide or comment on. You are gross for thinking it relevant to post here.
Well, John did make several foolish decisions in an uncharted tunnel in a cave in which he had no experienece. He was in the wrong tunnel but thought he was in the right one, and kept going even when the passage narrowed and dropped suddenly downward. If he had done his research, he would have known that a teen, Brock Clark, got stuck in the very same tunnel in 2004 and almost died there. John went 14 feet further into the same tunnel, a guy with a wife and baby at home and another baby on the way. His reckless decisions simply make no sense whatsoever.
The 2004 incident makes the fact that it was not sealed or at least highlighted and warned about as a danger even worse.
100% agree
Ja absolut richtig
I agree
yet no signs or warnings was agreed to be placed there? who’s fault is it really here?
Signs don’t work half the time. Yellowstone, don’t leave the boardwalk. Signs everywhere. What happens there?
I agree. They also made a mess of the rescue pulling his feet in the wrong direction using a bar just because it was there. The ropes should have gone straight from Johns feet to a pulley placed on the opposite side that the first pulley was placed. This would have pulled him in the right direction, no need for broken legs, & they did break at least one pulling in the wrong direction to the useless stone bar. It wasn’t the pulley that broke at all it was that bar they never needed in the first place that snapped sending him hurtling back down. After that fiasco he never spoke again so it no doubt killed him.
Expert engineers should have been in on the planning & I’m sure they wouldn’t have chosen to use an off angle bar without knowing it’s ability to hold weight & pulling in the wrong direction.
https://i.redd.it/mkkuu7goqkz41.jpg
Yes, it’s just too bad all the expert engineers were asleep in bed.
Umm if he’s head first into a cave with no access and all that was showing was his feet , how could they pull him in any other direction ? I’m just not understanding your logic
A mining expert should have been called in. People make reckless mistakes and they often pay the ultimate price and put other people in danger.
Obviously you know very little about the events leading up to his death..they lied about the size of the group. If they had not lied they would have been given a nutty putty guide and this wouldn’t have happened.. he also went into a passage not known to him, head first..which is basic knowledge of what not to do..the grotto management team did all they could..remember these guys are volunteers..
Sometimes it’s the persons fault that dies. Stop blaming others!
I just happened upon this thread and feel the need to at least comment.
This man chose to go into this cave. I am not taking anything away from the horrible situation but you will find dangerous situations all over the place and all of these cannot be monitored 24/7. Being from Utah, I see many old, open mines that are so numerous that no one can monitor these. That is why you should never go into a mine or cave period. This poor man was not prepared for what happened to him and no one else is responsible for this. You can’t blame someone else for this tragic accident.
Why cant there be multiple parites at fault? John himself as you have stated,the ones who oversee the cave and did not warn or block that route (despite a near death incident in 2004) and possibly some of the rescuers. I am inclined to not blame resuers as it was such a difficult situation. But at the same time John made a simple mistake that could have been avoided by verbal or written warnings beforehand,or visual warnings inside the cave. People make mistakes everyday,but society prevents death. A good example is ‘soft’ barriers that cars hit and mean people survive. They make a similar mistake but we make sure they survive. John may have been foolish,but he is far from solely at fault. Simply blocking off that part may have also been possible. Those who controlled that cave system had years to ensure no deaths occured,but did barely the bare minimum.
Choose to do something dangerous and you accept the consequences, you can’t blame others when it goes wrong. There were actually two other people that got stuck in the same part of this cave, both children, that were rescued via a similar pulley system. The land owner was so upset after this he almost dynamited the cave to ensure no one else went in, bit the police had him fill it with concrete.
Very true. Plus on top, even though they did a heroic effort, the rescuers made some mistakes along the way. Cave deaths are not that common in the US. Many more people die each year: crossing the street, using a stove/oven, go to the Grand Canyon, and even… using a vending machine believe it or not.
You live in a very sheltered idea of reality. Dangerous shit exists, and people will explore it. It’s not “society’s job” to child-proof the world. With that line of thinking, should we eradicate all the wild animals that kill people? Hold car manufacturers responsible for car accidents? Stop being so naive. This guy did something dangerous and paid the ultimate price. Nobody’s fault, not even his, it was just something that happened.
I totally agree Mike. Like what they say about mountaineering ” Going up is optional, coming down is recommended”
This is so tragic and heartbreaking…. He had a kid and one coming, and he was really young… Wow.
To be fair – if you go climbing down dangerous caves, there is always a risk to your life. Caves are dangerous, anyone who decides to go climbing down one that can barely squeeze a body through shouldn’t need warning about how dangerous it is, it’s pretty obvious really.
People make their own decisions, very often despite warnings of danger. This was all John, nobody else. It should never have happened but John made his choices.
I couldn’t agree more with you my friend. I couldn’t.
There were numerous warnings and signs everywhere. He was solely responsible for his death.
Why should they take responsibility for his stupidity? It’s just natural selection, being dumb has consequences.
What was he thinking, trying to squeeze into an area that tight.? He was careless and I feel terrible. I just will never understand his thinking at the time.
Great. You’re another blame the victim i. diot. Have you looked at the maps for Nutty Putty? No I bet as there are no warnings on them about dangerous passages. Anyone could have gotten a permit to enter that cave, experienced or not, and entered those dangerous unmarked passages, so you think blaming them is the answer? If you ever get attacked or assaulted will you be blaming yourself? You really need to think more before you insult John.
The minute you try to squeeze through and area too small for you, you take on those risks. It’s defined tragic, but he assumed the risks the minute he squeezed through that space.
The tragedy here is the absolute stupidity of you victim-blaming.
It’s weird to call this victim blaming like someone assaulted or raped him. His perp was a hole.. that he willingly crawled into. That rhetoric isn’t a good analog.
This man chose to go there and made stupid decisions. It’s called hubris,with a coating of ordinary everyday stupidity. The event was a cascade of wrong or inadequate decisions. John’s choices started it. The rest of the people involved were trying to ***rescue*** him, using techniques that their experience told them should be usable; his death is not their fault.
RevW and the others blaming it all on John, did you freaking read the article and comments? John was going by a map of the cave but ended up taking a wrong turn because they DELIBERATELY left one of the paths uncharted. If they hadn’t done that, this tragedy would have been avoided. Your victim-blaming is repulsive.
Well, who else do you blame here? No one forced him to go into the cave.
The passage should have been marked. John should not have gone head first into a passage he didn’t know. It was a tragedy and that’s that. The passage is sealed off now and the blame game doesn’t bring John back so there’s no point in it.
He was not raped, he made a decision to do something dangerous, potentially lethal. You don’t sue Honda for a motorcycle crash, nor the raceway the crash occured at. You choose to do something potentially lethal as a form of fun. John was an adult and should have understood the potential consequences to his actions. Sometimes bad things and accidents happen, without the need for prison sentences.
You mean to tell me, if you were doing that, and saw an opening CLEARLY too small for your body, that you would WILLINGLY try to squeeze yourself into it? Then you’re an idiot too. “Victim blaming” is when you blame a women for getting raped. Not when someone purposely does something incredibly stupid, and then has to face the consequences of their actions, no matter how dire they may be.
Shush. It was Solely Johns fault. Very irresponsible considering he had a family. Tragic but only his fault.
It was said that he thought he was in a different tunnel , one that would have opened up enough for him to turn around . So he kept going forward trying to find that open area to turn around . But he was in the wrong area and there wasnt any place to turn around .
2016 movie “The Last Descent”! It’s about John Jones rescue attempt! It was hard for me to watch since I knew what the outcome was going to be! It’s definitely worth watching. You know we are all responsible for our own safety! None of us where there, blaming the people trying to rescue for failing is heartless. I’m old almost 70 now and I had a near death experience at age 20. I can only blame myself for risking my life. I would imagine that John blamed himself for being trapped. Watch the movie.
Oh it was such a bad situation all the way around. But when it came to the rescue attempt, there were serious mistakes made on their part. Very very serious. When you look from the top of the ground straight down where he was, where his body was, they could have easily excavated the ground down to him.
And once they drugged down to his body, what say within 3 feet and it’s very easy to determine depth by using sonar or X-ray measurement/Measuring devices. And they could have excavated down to him within no more then let’s say, at the most, 10 hours.
For the rest of my life I will be wondering this. WHY WHY WHY Did somebody anybody think about excavating the ground. You start with an excavator!!! A large size like we use here in the Wyoming oil Fields.
Could have dug down easily, within 8 to 10 hours.
ROCK, not “ground”.
I’m afraid you’re ignorant, he was 100 feet down. It would take days to excavate down to him. He had 27 hours. They were experts and did all they could. Don’t sideline quarterback. You have a lot of nerve!
He thought he was on a charted route do it’s more like a fatal error than sheer recklessness.
There is actually a 2nd a 3rd entrance to Nutty Putty, it’s just not known to most as the main entrance is…btw…John is still stuck there and all the rescue equipment, but he’s been reduced to a almost skeleton now.
Chris Taber, So you’re saying the cave is still used & John s remains have been observed, what is left of the poor man, in situ? Perhaps his family should be asked if they want them out of that miserable black hole & put to rest somewhere where they can pay respects.
They sealed that area with him inside.
Read the article…DUH!!!
It was unfortunately too dangerous to pull his body out. They literally would have had to cut him up to get him out. And there was no sense in continuing to risk the safety of the rescue team for a deceased body.
Are you saying that people are still exploring that cave system ? And that they have came across John’s remains and rescue equipment still there ? And Do you think his remains could be rescued now so that his family could have a proper burial for him ?
I am no expert and i am not laying the blame at any ones door, i am just asking a question- Would it have been possible to drill down from the surface adjacent to where John was trapped( approx 100ft down) and got him out that way?
Everything happened within hours. The first responders arrived there in 3-4 hours and immediately began the rescue efforts. It would have taken so much more time to locate him from above, to get the necessary machinery and personnel, and to start drilling through the extremely hard rock with enough time and precision to reach him in time and not kill him in the process. It was so much easier and quicker to access him through the available path. I imagine if they had more days or weeks they would have definitely considered that.
Thanks for your reply. I understand what you have said, but John was alive for approx 27 hours. Surely with the technology available it wouldn’t have taken that long to get to him by drilling?
Thank you for the discussion.
He was stuck in an incredibly small space, facing upside down. In my opinion, even if the rescue crews could have pinpointed his location from above and started drilling, he would’ve faced the risk of the drill causing serious damage to him and/or collapsing the cave around him. It is also uncertain how the drilled hole would’ve had an advantage as they already had access to him from above and would’ve drilled the passageway wider had they had enough time. In practice, cave rescue operations nearly always take place via the already existing cave paths. I’m sure the rescuers brainstormed all the available options and it was just bad circumstances and the failure of the initial pulley system that dropped him further down in the passage and lead him to his death.
That said, these are my thoughts and you could be right. I don’t have enough expertise or knowledge about the situation to say what could have been done differently, unfortunately.
percussive drilling, the fastest method, runs the risk of shattering and collapsing the rock and passages John was in, killing him. Rotary diamond drilling would have taken longer to set up and reach John than the 26 hours he stayed alive after getting stuck.
source: my uncle who mined nickel in Ontario all his life.
That’s what makes this such a horrific story. The guy chose to squeeze himself into rock that is so thick and so hard it would take yeah take a kiloton bomb blast to even knock away half of the rocks surrounding him. He was ENTOMBED. How do you get that way unless you’re just not very smart or you think it’s cool to take a risk with no pay off except certain death. It’s not even comparable to riding a motorcycle 150 mph or cliff diving from 150 feet because at least those offer the thrill of speed or a big splash.
That is true, but it could risk rocks getting loose by the vibration. If they drill from the surface it would take a really long time. I think that’s why they didn’t drill
That would take days so no.
Don’t do stupid shit!!
I think a decision should have been made to pull him out no matter how much he screamed. They should have broke his legs and ripped him out of that hole and fixed him after he was out and alive. I understand he was screaming in pain but I guarantee you he would have rather got out busted and broken rather then dying how he did. I’m not sure what drives people to do shit like this and to try to fit in places that you actually have to exhale all the air in your body to fit into.
I read another story the other day about a guy who was with a whole bunch of friends in a cave that was like 2 miles down and when he was crawling through 1 of the caves a rock came loose from above him and hit him right on his back and paralyzed him a mile or 2 underground. It was a cave in Canada and everybody left to go get help but 1 person stayed with him. After a long time rescue finally reached him and a doctor examined him and found he broke his spine and was paralyzed. So the only way to move him was put him on a back board and strap him down with like 2 straps so he wouldn’t move even an inch and break his back anymore. I think it took them 10 hours to move him like 100 feet because the backboard kept getting stuck and they had to keep repositioning him. Well after 10 hours they got to a spot where the cave was really narrow and you could barely crawl through and they had this dude on a backboard that couldn’t bend to get around the turns so they used hammers and drills for hours but couldn’t widen the passages enough. So 1 of the rescuers was an explosives expert and decided the only way was dynamite. They had to blast 7 or 8 diff parts of the caves in all diff areas to get this dude out on a backboard. I think it took them like 30 hours and a lot of rescuers but they did it.
All these people put their lives at risk because somebody wants to go and squeeze through caves for a rush. I think you need to sign a waiver when going into caves like these that if you injure yourself or get lost or disabled in some way that your ultimately on your own and nobody is going to risk their life because of your stupidity and need to crawl into a cave miles below the surface. We’d have less people doing these dumb activities because some would die and other would stop so they don’t die.
The problem is that it isn’t just about the pain. Bones, especially legs, have a rich blood supply. Breaking his legs would have caused blood loss. One broken femur can result in 1-2 liters of blood loss. The pain could also cause shock. Those concerns had to be considered as well. They eventually decided to risk it, but the attempt failed.
Also, rescuers don’t knowingly risk their lives. Every possible precaution is taken to make sure that firefighters, medics, and other rescuers aren’t in danger. Sometimes things go wrong, but they aren’t going to intentionally risk injury or death in a rescue. When someone goes into a cave like that or a similar situation, there’s no guarantee that they’ll be rescued if something goes wrong. If the situation is too dangerous for rescuers, then they won’t be rescued.
Also, a bit of insight on the people who do these things: A lot of them are volunteers. They go to training sessions, pay for their own gear, and completely disrupt their personal lives to do this because they love it. Obviously, in this case, everyone was heartbroken and disappointed, I’m sure, but in the other case mentioned, where they freed the trapped boy? I’m sure everyone was through the roof. It would have been the same had they succeeded here. The people involved love brainstorming. They love figuring out how to implement a solution. They love being the person who is there with the victim/patient, keeping them calm and reassuring them. They go through occasional tragedies like this and dozens of routine, boring calls, for that one case where it all comes together and they save someone. Had they managed to pull John out alive, the preceding thirty hours would have melted away.
So you break both his legs, then loft his entire body weight by his ankles for 30 seconds to a minute as he is lifted out. I would be concerned his legs would be ripped off. This was about the most difficult situation I can imagine for all parties. Rescuers got to him at like 1 in the morning and worked for nearly 30 hours straight. I would probably have been begging for a gun by the end if I was John.
How do you put someone out if you can only reach their feet? 🤔
People smarter than you realized breaking his legs would have killed him instantly. By the time the pulleys were in place and they tried to pull him, it had been 19 hrs. The shock of breaking his body would have been instant death. He was dying at that point. The cave is not solid- it’s like putty. He was doomed the moment he chose to go head first down into that section. That’s Caving 101. Never go head first down.
They should have put him to sleep and break his legs….
How could he crawl out of the cave with his legs broken? Also there was bo way they could drug him. His heart was not pumping blood on his legs. The drugs would not work.
The pulleys broke. Read the story
Makes me claustrophobic thinking in how anyone would choose to do this. I got claustrophobic just getting into an MRI machine lol. What if you get a cramp while you’re in one those tight places, you’re screwed..
I went caving ONCE when I was in my 20’s. Crawling on my belly to a large room in the cave. Once was enough for me. It’s insane!
Why couldn’t a doctor at least come and sedate him so he could’ve died peacefully?
I am so claustrophobic that they have to sedate me going into an MRI. Just imagining getting stuck like that makes me feel like I can’t breathe but then again, you’ll never, EVER find me in any cave.
I just wish they could’ve pulled his body out so his family could bury him. May he RIP.
Omg I know right!! I was thinking the same thing. I had a panic attack reading this that’s how bad my anxiety is. One of my fears is claustrophobia and I mean it’s a huge fear! I can’t imagine what was going through this mans mind not to mention they had no choice but to leave him in the cave. So so sad 😞
Me too!
They were able to sedate him. He was also losing touch with reality towards the end like asking why they put him in there.
Because they almost saved him. They weren’t thinking he would die until he actually died.
I’ve seen some beautiful photos of caves, but nothing that would make me squeeze through anywhere like this. What a terrible way to go.
This is such a sad, tragic story. And it happened on/underground. I am an experienced AOW diver. I avoid caves like the plague. No cave diving for me. Too many things can go wrong underwater, and the last place I want to be is in an underwater cave.
People understand what their getting themselves into, this isn’t a cave with a nice path and perfect wood stairset going down to a boardwalk with a tour guide. It’s a slippery dark hole with smaller holes going into the ground, and that’s a lot of the excitement of exploring caves. I completely understand the argument for closing specific holes off, but by that logic they would have to do the same at every known cave with holes similar, which for me would cause me to lose a lot of excitement if I went into a cave and there were a couple paths and then a bunch of little cemented over ones. However not marking it or other holes like it in the guides is completely irresponsible, so I feel like there is definitely some blame to be shared.
This tragic event shocked me. The part that I could never understand is, if the rescue team was able to pull John out of the cave that much as to make eye contact with him and to see a smile on his face, John’s arms and torso must have been out. It just doesn’t make sense to me that he simply fell right back into the crevice and got stuck further down when the pulley system failed…
Same, I don’t get that either.
They probably made eye contact with him while still upside down, but a little inclinated. That’s my guess.
Look at the illustration. He was only partly out when the pulley broke. He was weak after 19 hrs. He couldn’t stop himself from falling back down. There was no purchase there to grab
Darwin award, Imagine doing this to yourself.
Too late, he already had 2 kids.
“It is unclear from the conflicting sources on the internet whether John entered the Birth Canal and accidentally turned and wriggled into the Scout Eater or if he had missed the Birth Canal entirely and crawled into another passageway, just next to the Birth Canal, called Ed’s Push.”
This story had captivated me when I first heard about it… over a decade later. This question though, is one that still looms.
1) Several account stated John was stuck in the same place a scout was stuck years earlier, but about 14 feet past that.
a. I would have to re-read the articles, but I believe cave management and rescuers stated this several times.
2) Is it plausible to think the passage “scout eater” was named after the scout that was stuck there for some 14 hours? I don’t know how old the names on the maps are but that tunnel is not on the old map. It’s only on the new map and with the title. I think they added this when the scout was stuck, and gave that passage the name to keep people away.
Until this article, I thought he was in Ed’s push. Now I’m pretty certain he’s in Scout Eater. The shape of the tunnel described by rescuers matches the new map scout eater tunnel. There was clearly local angst that this particular tunnel wasn’t sealed off “because a scout had been stuck in the exact same spot years earlier”.
Super tragic.
That does make a lot of sense!
No warnings in a cave with very narrow passages? Perhaps they expected people to use a bit of common sense and not go into them…..should we also put warnings at the foot of every crag warning people climbing them could be fatal?
Does anyone know if there are any new guidelines or techniques suggested in hindsight as to how a rescue team might approach this type of rescue should it ever occur again? God forbid rescuers would ever have to be faced with this situation ever again, but it would be nice to know something was learned from this tragedy. If it were me, I’d probably want an oxygen mask for the guy, before Jack hammering away next to him.. You know, by someone with balls of steel? 🙄