In November 2009, just days before Thanksgiving, medical student John Edward Jones was visiting his family in Utah with his wife, Emily, and their newborn daughter.
A passionate caver, John joined his brother and nine friends for a spelunking adventure at the Nutty Putty Cave, eager to relive his love for exploring underground.
Little did he know, in just over 24 hours, the cave would become his final resting place.
The Nutty Putty Cave, known for being a popular spot for beginner cavers, was divided into sections with varying levels of difficulty. Despite being a relatively accessible cave, its narrow, winding passages had caused issues for explorers in the past. Between 1999 and 2004, six individuals became trapped and had to be rescued, prompting authorities to close the cave for three years in 2006 to prevent a fatal incident.
However, for John and his experienced group of friends, the risk of getting stuck seemed minimal. John, alongside his brother Josh, decided to explore a particularly difficult part of the cave known as “The Birth Canal.” This challenging route involved navigating a long, narrow passageway before opening up into a spacious cavern.
A Utah Cave Rescue team member works to free John Jones from the depths of Nutty Putty Cave.
A memorial plaque to John Edward Jones outside the Nutty Putty cave. John died after getting stuck upside-down in a narrow crevice
John and Josh eventually encountered an incredibly tight opening in the cave’s walls, and John, always eager to explore, led the way, wriggling deeper into the passage.
What John didn’t realize was that he was venturing toward his own death. The pair had unknowingly veered off course at the entrance to the Birth Canal and ended up in an unmapped section of the cave. Still, John pressed forward, convinced he was on the right path.
Soon, John came upon a fissure in the rock that appeared to lead downward, which he thought might open into a larger cavern and provide him with a chance to turn around. Determined to explore further, John sucked in his chest and slid his torso over the rock’s lip, descending into the 10-inch-wide side of the crevice.
But as he tried to maneuver, he found himself stuck. His chest expanded, and the six-foot-tall, 200-pound man was wedged tight. In his struggle to free himself, John inadvertently slid even deeper into the hole, now trapped upside down in a space no bigger than a front-loading washing machine, only 10 by 18 inches.
When Josh finally found his brother, he was horrified to see only John’s feet sticking out, with the rest of his body wedged headfirst down the narrow crevice.
Speaking to local media at the time, Josh described how the rock seemed to have “swallowed” his brother. “It was really serious,” he said, unable to hide his shock.
After unsuccessfully trying to free John on his own, Josh rushed back to the surface to get help. Soon, a large group of volunteers and professionals had gathered to assist with the rescue operation.
The first to arrive at the scene was local rescue volunteer Susie, who carefully made her way down the tunnel, roping herself in for safety. Nearly three hours after John had become trapped, she finally reached him.
Though she reassured him that she would have him out quickly, Susie soon realized that the cave’s tight angle and narrow passage made it nearly impossible to maneuver his body out of the crevice.
What followed was a tense brainstorming session involving the entire rescue party, now joined by emergency services, as they struggled to figure out how to free John from his underground prison. The team attempted various tactics, including lubricating the cave walls and drilling away chunks of rock. However, the hard material and tight space made the drilling process slow and painstaking.
After hours of trying different methods, the team devised a plan to pull John to safety using a complex system of ropes and pulleys, which they would secure around his feet. This plan, however, took hours to set up, complicated further by the cave’s narrowness, which meant only one person could work directly with John at a time.
By this point, John was starting to show signs of severe distress. Having been trapped upside down for hours, the blood that would normally flow to his feet had rushed to his head. His breathing became labored, and his heart was pounding twice as fast in a desperate attempt to counteract the effects of gravity and push the blood out of his brain.
Despite his growing discomfort, there was still hope. Slowly but surely, John was being lifted from his subterranean prison. He was able to communicate with his wife, Emily, via a two-way radio brought into the cave, giving her updates on his condition.
At one point, John was lifted high enough to make eye contact with the rescuer closest to him. The rescuer asked, “How are you?”
John replied with a mix of frustration and disbelief, saying, “It sucks. I’m upside down. I can’t believe I’m upside down.”
“My legs are killing me,” he added, clearly in agony.
Just as John neared the end of his ordeal, the rescue team decided to take a short break. However, disaster struck when one of the pulleys securing the ropes came loose, causing one rescuer to be briefly knocked out and sending John tumbling deeper into the crevice.
In an instant, all hope seemed lost. Attempts to tie a fresh rope around John’s leg caused another rescuer to nearly become stuck as well, further complicating the rescue.
After 27 hours in the hole, John had become unresponsive. One of the rescuers managed to crawl close enough to check his vitals. He reported that John’s body temperature was dangerously close to that of the rocky cave walls.
A paramedic who had descended to the scene was able to confirm the worst: John had tragically passed away.
John’s cause of death was determined to be cardiac arrest and suffocation. After his passing, Emily was determined not to leave the Nutty Putty cave until her husband’s body was recovered. The local sheriff assured her that the authorities would eventually bring him out.
However, the danger involved in attempting to retrieve John’s body soon became apparent. The decision was made that it was too risky for rescuers to continue, and to prevent any future accidents, the entrance to the narrow passage where John had been trapped was sealed off using controlled explosives and filled with concrete.
Sgt. Spencer Cannon, who was part of the rescue operation, recalled that after John’s death was confirmed, there were “rather distasteful discussions” about how to proceed with recovering his body. Ultimately, the decision was made to leave him in place, prioritizing the safety of the rescuers over further efforts to retrieve the body.
Some spelunkers were strongly opposed to closing the Nutty Putty cave, and a petition was started to save it, but the effort was unsuccessful. In 2016, the tragedy was dramatized in the film *The Last Descent*.
As it became clear that the remains could not be recovered, the entrance to the cave was transformed into a makeshift memorial for John, with a plaque placed there in his honor.
John left behind his wife, Emily, and their young daughter, Lizzie. At the time of the accident, Emily was also expecting their second child. The following year, Emily gave birth to a baby boy, whom she named after his father.
