Beautiful sunny weather graced the day with only three days left until Thanksgiving. A healthy and intelligent medical student embarked on an adventure to explore a popular and interesting cave, considered suitable for beginners. Despite everything seemingly going smoothly and well, a single mistake altered the course of events—taking a wrong turn. This turn led to a tragedy that continues to fuel speculations and terror to this day. Tragedy known as the Nutty Putty Incident.
John gained his first experience exploring caves as a child when his father used to take him along. However, he had not had the opportunity to continue and enhance his cave-crawling skills since then. On the evening of November 24th at 8 PM, a Wednesday, John, along with his younger brother Josh, embarked on a planned trip to a cave. Given their limited experience, they opted for Nutty Putty Cave, a popular destination for tourists and cave explorers, attracting thousands of visitors each year.
Having said their goodbyes to John's small daughter and his pregnant wife Emily, the duo of John and Josh made their way to the entrance of Nutty Putty Cave in Utah County. They were not alone; nine additional friends and acquaintances had joined them, meeting the caving standard that demanded a minimum of two people on-site. Interestingly, none of them had explored this cave before, relying solely on a map and the stories shared by others.
Before delving into their underground experience, a few important things need to be mentioned. Nutty Putty Cave has only one entrance, measuring only 1.8 meters across, meaning you cannot traverse a cave passage and exit from a different point. In caves like this one, explorers navigate through passages until they reach a room known as an opening, where they can either turn around or continue to the next opening. This is why it is crucial to take a path that has been explored before to ensure there is enough space ahead to turn around and not find oneself searching for an exit.
Indeed, Nutty Putty Cave is a beautiful cavern with numerous tourist-friendly spots that are enjoyed by many. Some of these spots are known as The Big Room, The Maze, and The Big Slide, which descends at a steep 45-degree angle, but the room is large enough for navigation and exploration. Most cavers visit these areas of the cave and often stop right after The Big Slope, as the real challenge begins beyond.
In this section, a room branches into two paths, left and right. The right path, well-explored and mapped, is known as Bobs Push or Birth Canal that explorers actually have to suck their stomachs in to get through it. It features a super tiny tunnel, mostly straight, around 20 feet long. There have been multiple incidents of people getting trapped in the Birth Canal before, but successful rescues have been carried out. This canal exits into an opening wide enough to rest and decide whether to backtrack or continue through an even narrower passage called The Aorta Crawl. This part of the cave is rarely used due to the extremely narrow passage and long tunnel, requiring more experience.
Based on the comments from people present during that tragic day, including friends and rescuers, John and the team decided to be divided into groups of two and explore different parts of the cave. John chose to be in a team with his brother Josh and headed towards the Bobs Push area. John, with his confident personality, decided to lead, and Josh followed him. However, the main contradiction in this story arises once they passed through The Big Slide room.
It is believed that John intended to go through the Birth Canal and accidentally entered the wrong passageway, thinking he was in the Birth Canal throughout his crawling. However, this theory doesn't hold much weight for two reasons: firstly, every caver knows that paths already traveled feature polished black stone, and secondly, there is a sign with an arrow indicating the Birth Canal. Therefore, the chances of John not knowing that he entered the wrong path are slim.
The decision to turn left into a less explored area called Eds Push led to an unexpected ending. Eds Push passage was never well-documented due to its complexity. Typically, new passages are mapped and explored for spelunkers to facilitate navigation. The rule is simple: if an area is not well-mapped, it means it's not intended for cavers to explore. Authorities even considered placing closing signs in some areas like Eds Push, but later, this idea was declined, explaining, "This is a wild cave, so it will ruin that experience."
Nevertheless, John took this path, which is around 30 feet long roller coaster trip with many turns and twists that are not easy to navigate. It takes a special technique to maneuver through a cramped limestone tunnels that wound through the earth like the path of a worm, first with arms, then shoulders, and finally legs. It's not as simple as pushing forward like in the Birth Canal. Eventually, John reached one of the most dangerous parts of Eds Push called the Corkscrew. This area is well-known due to a previous incident back in 2004 involving 16-year-old Brock Clark. He was much smaller in size than Josh, being only 5’7’’ tall and weighing 140 pounds, whereas John was 6’ 0” tall and 200 pounds. Clark got wedged when he tried to turn around in the Corkscrew passage, and it took 14 hours for the rescue team to save him.
After bending in an "L" shape position, John managed to pass the Corkscrew compression, thinking he had accomplished something that most couldn't. However, he was unaware of the challenges ahead. As the passage widened a bit and straightened leading towards a ledge, John knew he wouldn't be able to turn at this point. He needed to find some opening ahead to make a turn back. Approaching the ledge, he had to exhale all air from his lungs and squeeze through. Unfortunately, after such a tight area, there was no opening, and the 45-degree slope started pulling John with gravity downwards.
John tried to stop with his hands, but he was already tired and exhausted, so he decided to move a bit more ahead until he could lean on something and think about what to do next. Once he stabilized, he signaled to Josh not to follow him, as the slope would only complicate the situation. Seeking Josh's advice on what to do next, they concluded that the best option was to keep going and find a wide enough area to turn around.
Already fatigued, John started crawling forward and noticed some sort of opening that gave him hope. The hole in front of him looked exactly like the opening at the end of The Birth Canal, where, after passing through, you find a large room. He might have thought that this is a similar area to the previous Corkscrew passage where you have to bend into an L shape and pass through. Once he started getting inside the opening ahead, he realized that there was no way forward, but his torso was already inside. Even worse, the bend had caught him almost like a hook, holding him in place just below his ribcage. He began pushing himself upwards from this crevice, but his arms were in a useless position, one was pinned underneath him, the other forced backward by an outcropping of rock.
Understanding that all his efforts only made it worse, as getting out of the 10 to 18-inch fissure which is smaller than some microwaves is nearly impossible without external help. Once John relaxed his muscles his body shifted towards the narrowest side of this hole, which was only 8 inches wide, making it hard for John to breathe, not to mention pushing up.
John started panicking and calling Josh for help. Josh crawled towards John with his legs ahead to avoid getting trapped, but it took some time for Josh to pass through all the obstacles John went through. Finally, Josh reached John, and what he saw terrified him, but he tried to calm John down without showing signs of fear. “Seeing his feet and seeing how swallowed he was by the rock, that’s’ when I knew it was serious.” Josh said. He wrapped John's calves with his feet and tried to pull John out, but with no success. After almost an hour of struggle, they were exhausted and decided to call for professional help.
After a quick prayer together, Josh promised to come back as soon as possible. While Josh was away, some other family members and friends came to John's location as close as possible to talk to him. Over time, gravity started pushing John even deeper into the unknown. He started feeling the first signs of difficulty breathing due to diaphragm pressure caused by organs pushing on it. Every second played against John's life.
The first rescuer to leave her things behind and drive to the cave right away was Susie Motola. It took around three hours until Josh went for help, and Susie arrived all the way down to John. Susie was aware of that section of the cave and the tricky Corkscrew passage, so she tied a rope to her ankle as a precaution. Also, being only 5 feet 3 inches tall helped her navigate through the tunnels faster than Josh. It was around 12:30 in the morning once she reached John, and the first thing she told him was: “Hi John, this is Susie. How are you doing?”. His reply was surprisingly calm, as he hoped that a professional rescuer would definitely help him get free from this trap: “Hi Susie, I really need to get out of here!”. John had retrograde amnesia when first contacted by Susie, supporting the idea that he may have fallen through and hit his head. She tied the rope around John's feet and tried pulling him out from the fissure, but with no success. Due to the complexity of the passage all the way to John's location, the rope experienced too much friction, affecting its efficacy. Susie tried different aggressive techniques, but John's body moved a few inches, only to be pushed back again once Susie released the rope. Once Susie realized that this technique doesn't work, she knew that it required a more advanced technique, a pulley system that was used before in 2004 to rescue Brock.
Meanwhile, a big team of 20 rescuers arrived at the cave location to brainstorm on what to do next. Many factors affected their rescue plan, such as the distance to John from the entrance being around 400 feet. It took more than 1 hour for one rescuer at a time to reach John. They also had to consider the Corkscrew area, limiting their ability to bring large tools through the passage. Additionally, the stone in this cave is really hard, so it took a lot of effort to install each hook for the pulley system.
While rescuers prepared the pulley system, other team members talked to John to calm him down. John was a devoted Christian, so praying was very important for him, especially in this extreme situation where the line between life and death was fading with every passing minute. It had been all night now for John to be upside down, and his body started showing signs of physical limitations to withstand such a position. The human body is designed the other way around, and staying upside down for a long period is mostly dangerous for our heart, lungs, and brain. All organs start pressing on the lungs, limiting their ability to expand to their full capacity, creating oxygen hunger in the body. Too much blood starts accumulating in the brain, and our body is designed to pull blood from the legs instead and distribute it in proper amounts around the body. Once too much blood and toxins start accumulating in the upper body, particularly in the brain, our heart starts pumping too much volume of blood, eventually starting to fail and causing blood pressure imbalances, leading to organ failure. Eventually, John started hallucinating and losing his short-term memory. It was hard to watch.
All rescuers were exhausted and switched with each other to preserve more energy; some of them got trapped in the Corkscrew area for some time, causing a delay, but there was much less worry for them as they were tied with a rope. Unfortunately, John didn't have that luxury. He couldn't even breathe properly due to compression in an extremely tight space. They decided to bring a wired telecom system to John to let him talk to his wife. She told him: “John, you are pushing too hard; have some rest and then try again even harder.” He replied to her, assuring that he would be out soon, so they didn't have to worry.
Finally, at 4 o’clock afternoon on that day, the pulley system was ready. In the pit, eight people worked as one. One of the rescuers, named Ryan Shurtz, was near John, so to make the pull effective, he had to push his legs over. Once they started pulling, John started screaming due to excruciating pain in his legs. His legs were completely blue with no pulse, indicating that not enough blood circulated in his legs, causing nerve damage. Rescuers had to stop every few minutes to let John rest a bit. Inch by inch, they were pulling John out of the crevice, and it seemed to be working. They were able to pull him to the extent that Ryan saw John's eyes. His eyes were red and tired. Ryan passed some water to John and continued pulling efforts. It looked like a miracle pulling John from a 10-inch crevice. It worked until unexpected happened. The height of the passage was only 12 inches, causing John's feet to hit the ceiling.
Now 19 hours in an upside-down position, with legs completely numb, John couldn't bend them to make pulling more effective. Rescuers started considering breaking John's legs, but doctors on site warned them that it might cause shock and a cardiac arrest. Ryan started bending John's legs, and suddenly, a loud blast happened. Ryan passed out for a minute, and after opening his eyes, he noticed blood all around – he got injured to his face by one of the failed pulleys and carabiners that came out of the cave and hit his face. Due to this injury, he had to get out and seek medical attention. The worst thing is that John wedged himself even deeper by cutting blood circulation to his arms, and his legs were completely dead. John couldn't help free himself even an inch.
Once Ryan was out of the pit and sent to the hospital, his father Dave took his place. This time he tried to tie a rope around John's body but couldn't pass it through the wedged torso. While re-establishing the pulley again, Dave got trapped for 15 minutes, after which he realized that there was no way of pulling a 200-pound man without him pushing and trying to leverage in some way. Dave understood that it would eventually put both of them in danger. Dave pushed himself out of the 12-inch tunnel and asked Brandon Kowallis to take his place.
Brandon brought the telecom system again to let John speak to his wife Emily. He heard a lot of optimism in their words, but he understood that it all looked hopeless. Brandon reported that John, before becoming unresponsive, made some gurgling breaths which may indicate suffocation. The rescue team gathered in the pit area to discuss further steps and decided to send one of the paramedics to John to determine if he was still alive. At 11:56 PM on Wednesday, November 25th, John Jones was pronounced dead. The rescue team worked more than 24 hours straight to try pulling John out of his rocky prison. John survived an extraordinary 27 hours, which is almost three times more than was predicted. The human body can survive approximately 10 hours at a 90-degree upside-down position, but John's position was at 70 degrees, giving him more hours to live. Out of 20 rescuers, 6 of them crawled directly to John by risking being trapped in an unmapped portion of the Nutty Putty cave.
After passing away, John's body became quickly stiff, making it impossible to recover. John was left to rest in the Ed's Push section of the Nutty Putty Cave for eternity, which eventually became his grave. Not only that, but officials placed two seals on the cave. First, they sealed Ed’s push entrance preventing immediate access to John’s body and later the entire cave system was closed off with concrete, never to be explored again. A plaque was placed there to commemorate John Edward Jones.
