The final, desperate moments of a young medical student, trapped upside down in a claustrophobic cave tunnel, have been recounted in chilling detail, more than a decade after the tragedy that shocked the world of adventure sports.
A Thanksgiving Trip Turns to Tragedy
In November 2009, 26-year-old John Edward Jones, an experienced spelunker and medical student, was visiting family in Utah for the Thanksgiving holiday. On 24 November, he and a group of friends decided to explore the popular Nutty Putty Cave, a site known for its tight, twisting passages and challenging crawls.
John's aim was to find a formation called the Birth Canal, an exceptionally narrow vertical shaft. Tragically, he made a fatal navigational error. He mistakenly entered an unmapped section known as Ed's Push and descended headfirst into a dead-end tunnel. Using his hips, stomach, and fingers to inch forward, he soon realised he was irrevocably wedged. There was no space to turn around or even retreat backwards.
A Frantic and Futile Rescue Mission
His only perceived option was to push further, exhaling to compress his chest and squeeze through an L-shaped pinpoint just 10 inches across and 18 inches high. His brother, Josh, was the first to find him and tried desperately to pull him out by his calves, but it was impossible. In a horrifying turn, John then slid deeper, becoming trapped with his arms pinned beneath his chest.
Josh was forced to leave to raise the alarm, triggering a major rescue operation. Cave explorer Brandon Kowallis joined the effort and became the last person to see John alive. In a later written account, Kowallis described a grim scene. John had begun talking about "seeing angels and demons around him". When Kowallis reached him, there was no verbal response.
"I could hear him breathing a deep gurgling breath, as though his lungs were filling with fluid," Kowallis wrote. "Then his feet shifted... The kicking looked fairly frantic and after a second he stopped." Rescuers passed a radio down so John's parents and his pregnant wife, Emily, could tell him they loved him and were praying for him.
The Inevitable Outcome and Lasting Legacy
All efforts to shift John into a horizontal position failed. Rescuers estimated that even if he had been fully conscious and at peak fitness, there was only a "minute chance" of success. Kowallis later measured John's body temperature, finding it had dropped to nearly match the surrounding cave wall. His limbs had become stiff.
A paramedic eventually confirmed John had died from cardiac arrest. With recovery deemed impossible and too dangerous, authorities made the difficult decision to seal the cave. The entrance was boarded up, declared a public health hazard, and roughly a week later, concrete was poured into the main opening, entombing John's body forever.
John left behind his wife, Emily, and their infant daughter, Lizzie. Emily was pregnant with their second child at the time; a son was born the following year and named in honour of his father. The Nutty Putty Cave remains permanently closed, a stark memorial to a life cut short in one of the most terrifying ordeals imaginable.
