On November 24, 2009, a group of cavers entered the Nutty Putty Cave in Utah, in what should have been a fun pre-Thanksgiving excursion. One of them would never resurface – trapped forever in a tunnel reported to be “no wider than the opening of a washing machine”.

In what would later become known as the Nutty Putty Cave Incident, John Edward Jones died under circumstances so nightmarish that the once popular caving system was forever closed to the public, ensuring such a catastrophe would never be repeated.

26-year-old John, who was preparing to welcome his second child at the time of his death, was a fairly experienced caver, but it had been a couple of years since his last adventure and he’d never before ventured into the famously twisty Nutty Putty. On that final, fateful trip, medical student John entered the cave alongside 10 other friends and family members, including his brother Josh.

The group began their exploration a large room known as the ‘Big Slide’. It was then that John, Josh, and two other pals broke away from the others in search of ‘Birth Canal’ tunnel – a more challenging passage notorious for being a tight squeeze. It was then that John made a fatal error.

As detailed in a harrowing report in The Salt Lake Tribune, John wriggled his way into a tunnel that was an uncomfortably tight fit for his 6ft, 200lb frame. He pushed on however, knowing that the claustrophobic Birth Canal would eventually widen out, allowing him to turn around.

What John didn’t realise at that moment was that he wasn’t actually inside the Birth Canal – a popular, well-trodden route for daredevil cavers. Instead, he had inadvertently crawled inside an unmapped passage that led to nowhere.

Back in 2004, another caver had become stuck inside this very same tunnel, but had thankfully been rescued with the help of a pulley system. Sadly, John had crawled some 14ft further on than they had, and was significantly taller and broader.

Eventually, John’s horizontal crawl took a vertical dip, and he found himself going downwards head-first. It was then that he realised he was completely wedged in, the hard, unforgiving rock pressing in all around, with no room to turn or push backwards to safety.

Remembering the moment their family adventure turned into a nightmare, Josh, who was following close behind feet first, told the Tribune: “Seeing his feet and seeing how swallowed he was by the rock, that’s when I knew it was serious. It was really serious.”

The two brothers, who were committed to their Mormon faith, prayed together, and Josh attempted to pull John out by wrapping his feet around his calves. But with nothing to hold onto, John would just slip back into the crevice the second Josh released his grip. Josh had no choice but to leave his brother and resurface, contacting emergency services for help.

A frantic rescue attempt began. The first to arrive at the scene was local resue volunteer Susie Motola, who promised John “You’re going to be out of here lickety split”. Susie tied a rope around John’s ankles, which she then strung back to the rest of the team waiting at the entrance of the passage.

To their dismay, however, the friction of the rope against the stone made pulling John out impossible. Susie tried everything she could, attempting to shift John’s position and even taking off his jeans to create a fraction more space. She kept his spirits up by joking that she’d certainly have a tale to tell his then-pregnant wife, Emily Jones-Sanchez.

The clock was ticking, and in the hours that followed, rescue party members and emergency services desperately tried to think of ways to retrieve John alive. A plan was devised to pull him to the surface using a system made of ropes and pulleys. This took some time to prepare, however, and all the while, John was stuck upside down in the same position he’d been in for a number of hours.

Initially, it seemed as though the system could be the answer, and the team began slowly pulling John free. In a sickening turn of events, however, a pulley failed during the extrication process, and John plummeted right back into issue. After having spent an agonising 27 to 28 hours imprisoned inside the crevice, John went into fatal cardiac arrest.

It was concluded that any attempt to retrieve John’s body would be far too dangerous and so explosives were used to collapse the ceilings to the passage, creating a makeshift tomb. All entrances to the cave were also then sealed off, in the hopes of preventing history from ever repeating itself.

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