For those who love to explore, spelunking is a favorite activity. The art of exploring caves on an increasingly difficult level adds to the adrenaline, easily making it an addictive form of pleasure. For John Jones and his family, caving and spelunking was a cherished part of childhood. As an adult, despite having grown up, the love was still there, so it was no surprise when John and his brother Josh decided to explore the Nutty Putty Cave.
The Nutty Putty Cave, located in Utah, is a hydrothermal cave, with a total surveyed length and depth of 1355 and 145 feet, respectively. It is one of several famous caves known for its narrow and slippery passageways. Perhaps you’ve heard of one, named “The Birth Canal”?
John was one of seven children; five boys and two girls. He was a devout Christian known for his sense of humor, excellent work ethic, and his love for family. He was wonderful to be around. In November 2009, he was married with a daughter and a baby on the way. Living in Virginia, he was studying to become a pediatric cardiologist.
In the days before Thanksgiving, John, along with his wife and daughter, returned to Utah to spend some time with family. On November 24, he and his brother Josh decided to spend some time together. They would do something they hadn’t done for years – go spelunking. Their destination? The Nutty Putty Cave. But they weren’t going alone, they had a group of 9 more friends and acquaintances joining them for the adventure.
They got started at around 8pm, and things were going great. They were in the cave and even reached the largest room, known as the Big Slide. But that hadn’t been enough for John, Josh, or a couple of their other friends. They wanted more and quickly began talking about a challenge they had heard about – passing through the Birth Canal.
The Birth Canal was aptly named for having a challenging passageway that eventually opened up to a larger room. Not for the claustrophobic or feint of heart.
John went first. At six feet tall, 200 pounds, he squeezed and wriggled for some time, but never came upon a larger room. He inched forward little by little until reaching a drop-off, or sharp downward turn. Feeling confident that the tunnel would get wider at the bottom, he pressed on and that’s when everything went wrong.
Head down, he reached an area that was just barely 10 inches wide and 18 inches high. Not enough space for a man of John’s size. Unable to turn back now, he exhaled the air in his chest, hoping to make himself smaller, but when he inhaled again, he was stuck. With one arm beneath him and one pressed backward, only his ankles and feet were free.
Josh was behind him and quickly realized what had happened. He tried pulling John back, grasping his calves and ankles, but to no avail. He was able to move him mere inches, and when he let go, John slid right back down.
After a quick prayer, Josh retreated from the tunnel, knowing he needed to get help. What they didn’t know was that they had taken a wrong turn.
Sources are unclear as to the exact path they had taken, they could have missed the Birth Canal completely and entered a tunnel just next to it called Ed’s Push. Or somewhere along the tunnel to the Birth Canal, they took a turn into the Scout Eater, named for the incidents where two boy scouts, within a week of each other, got trapped, and thankfully, rescued.
In one of those instances, a 16-year-old boy, weighing 140 pounds and standing at 5’7” tall, was rescued using a complex pulley system. It took 14 hours to free him from the tunnel. After those rescues in 2004, the Nutty Putty Cave was closed to the public. It had reopened just six months before John Jones had entered the cave.
The first rescue person to arrive was a volunteer named Susie Motola. She arrived at approximately 12:30am – John had been trapped for about 3.5 hours.
“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.”
Over the next few hours more than 100 rescue personnel arrived, ready to help. They quickly brainstormed multiple plans, from lubing the walls of the cave to using rescue rope to pull him out. Unfortunately the position of John’s body made things all the more difficult. He was trapped, nearly upside down and only his feet were visible to the rescuers. The ceiling hung so low, there was no way to just pull him up and out.
Their first attempt involved running a rope through a series of climbing cams and tying one end to his legs. They made little to no progress. Then they tried drilling away chunks of rock near where he was stuck, but the progress was slow going, the rock too hard to make any real difference.
John’s condition wasn’t getting any better. Stuck upside down for the duration meant his heart was having to work twice as hard to push blood away from his brain, acting against gravity. He was so compressed, he couldn’t take full breaths of air. Rescuers had to act fast.
They tried a rope-pulley system, anchoring the pulleys with bolts drilled deep into the cave walls. They worked in an eight men tandem, all tugging as one. After each pull, they managed to free John just a little more. They took breaks, as the pain John felt was immense.
After the third pull and about 8-hours of John being nearly upside down, he was finally high enough that the rescuers were finally able to make eye contact with him. He looked tired, dirty, his eyes were red, otherwise he seemed to be doing okay.
“It sucks. I’m upside down. I can’t believe I’m upside down. My legs are killing me.” But he still had a smile on his face.
Shawn Roundy, a rescuer with Utah County Sheriff’s Office, said they had difficulty reaching John, as he was stuck in “absolutely the worst spot in the cave.”
“It’s very narrow, very awkward, and it’s difficult to get rescuers down there,” Roundy said. “It’s a really tight spot, but we’ve been able to get around him. We were able to hold his hand at some point.”
It was about 4:30pm on Wednesday the 25th, the day before Thanksgiving. They were able to give him an IV, food, water, and even ran a wire for a police radio down to him, allowing him to talk to his wife.
Things were looking up, rescuers even enjoyed some pizza and water, believing the worst was over.
“He’s been really tough under the circumstances,” Josh Jones said. “There were periods of panic, disorientation, but he’s in good spirits now.”
After the break, it was finally time to get John the rest of the way out. The team grabbed the rope and pulled, but instead of feeling the taught weight on the other end, they all suddenly fell backward, the rope loose in their hands.
The rescuer closest to the tunnel felt something hard smack into his face, knocking him out. WHen he came to, he saw nothing but dust. The stone arch, near John’s legs, had been holding the rope, but no longer. The key bolt had broken off and all the progress they had made was gone. John had slid back down, and was now even further into the crevice than he had been before.
The rescuer had been hit hard in the face by a metal carabiner and had to tap out, switching places with another rescuer. When he reached John, he realized just how much worse the situation was. John’s breathing had become more labored as he took shallow breaths less frequently. He called out to John, but received no response.
He drilled a new hole for the pulley and crawled out of the cave. Another rescuer crawled in and attempted to get a response from John, but no luck. John had gone silent.
John had now been trapped for 19 hours, lodged in a crevice about 125 feet below ground level and as much as 700 feet into the cave.
“It must have been the integrity of the rock because the anchors are usually quite reliable,” Sgt Spencer Cannon said. “It wasn’t how they put things together.”
Soon afterward, a medical professional crawled into the cave and reached John. At midnight, November 25, John was pronounced dead. He was 26 years old.
It took a total of 137 rescue workers 27 hours to try to save John, but after all that time, they had to leave empty handed. The next day, authorities determined that it was too dangerous to retrieve John’s body, making the Nutty Putty Cave his final resting place.
1 week later, public authorities closed the cave to the public permanently. It remains sealed to this day. John’s family had a plaque created and placed on the entrance in his memory.
According to a family statement, John will be remembered 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.”
His family, including his wife and daughter, parents, four brothers, two sisters and 16 nieces and nephews – said in the statement that they are grateful for the rescue efforts and know officials “did all they could to get John out,” including singing Primary songs to help get him through the night.
“We’ll never fully understand how or why it was John’s time to leave us. But we find comfort knowing that he fulfilled his purpose here on Earth, and that we will be reunited with him again,” the family stated, adding thanks to many people and agencies that have helped them and Jones. “Thank you, and God bless all of you on this Thanksgiving Day.”
A movie was later made based on the rescue attempt of John Jones called The Last Descent.
If spelunking, caving, or even just exploring the rocky areas of Utah, be extra careful and always make sure someone knows where you are. The story of John Jones warns us to be diligent in our safety. The story of Aaron Ralston, author of Between a Rock and a Hard Place and subject of the movie 127 Hours – got trapped under a dislodged boulder, pinning his arm to the side of the canyon wall – warns us to always make sure someone knows where you are. In nature, there’s no telling what can happen.
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