John Edward Jones, 26, was a medical student and experienced spelunker who went cave diving with a group of friends and ventured into a narrow passageway while searching for the “Birth Canal”
A cave diver was left trapped upside down in a tiny passageway and suffered a horrific death made a horrifying sound as he lost his fight for life.
John Edward Jones, 26, was a medical student and experienced spelunker (someone who explores caves as a hobby) who went cave diving with a group of friends while visiting family in Utah for Thanksgiving in 2009. On November 24, the group ventured into the Nutty Putty Cave, a popular spelunking spot known for its tight twists, turns and crawls.
John decided to try and find the formation known as the Birth Canal, an incredibly narrow vertical passage. The father-of-one’s tragic mistake was instead ending up in an umapped area called Ed’s Push and going down a passageway with a dead end. He inched his way in head first, wiggling forward using his hips, stomachs and fingers. But within minutes he realised he was stuck, with no room to turn around or even go backwards.
His only option was to keep moving forward, and exhaled the air from his chest so he could fit through the “L-shaped pinpoint” which was just 10 inches across and 18 inches high. John’s brother Josh was the first to find him, and tried pulling at his calves but was unsuccessful. Terrifyingly, John then slid even further down into the passage and was trapped with his arms pinned under his chest.
Josh had no choice but to leave his brother and work his way out of the cave, where he called for help. Cave explorer and YouTuber Brandon Kowallis was asked to assist in the rescue mission and was the last person to see John alive. The day after their efforts failed, he wrote a detailed account of their harrowing attempts. He said that John “had started talking about seeing angels and demons around him”.
Brandon wrote: “John’s feet were about 6 feet past the constriction and I was able to shift myself to the side of him and down the 4 foot wide fissure. After stabilizing myself by jamming my body into a narrower section of the crack I began speaking to John asking him how he was and introducing myself.
“There was no response. I shifted my position a little and tapped him on the leg. I could hear him breathing a deep gurgling breath, as though his lungs were filling with fluid. Then his feet shifted as though he were trying to maneuver his legs out of the crack he was jammed in. The kicking looked fairly frantic and after a second he stopped and it looked as though he had drifted into unconsciousness. I continued tapping him on the legs and hip to see if I could get a response, but there was no response.”
The only option was manoeuvring John into a horizontal position, but that would mean climbing through the most difficult section of the passage he was trapped in. Even if he was conscious and at full strength, there would have been a “minute chance” of succeeding. A radio was brought out to John’s family, and his mum, dad and wife all told him they loved him and were praying for him.
As rescuers desperately tried to free John from the cave, he exhaled and let out “gurgling breaths” and frantically kicked in a superhuman attempt to free himself. Brandon attempted to use his jack hammer to chip away at the rock, but it kept sinking into the sand at the sides. He checked John’s temperature later that evening, which was close to the temperature of the rocks on the cave walls.
Brandon went on: “From there I removed his shoe and attempted to check his temperature. The thermometer read nothing, which the paramedic said was because the temperature was below the range. As I took his shoes off and moved his feet I noticed that his feet and legs were significantly stiffer than they had been earlier and it was difficult to his leg more than a few inches.”
A paramedic was able to get close enough to pronounce him dead of cardiac arrest. The entrance to Nutty Putty Cave was boarded up and declared a public health hazard. About a week later concrete was poured into the main opening of the cave, sealing John inside forever. John left behind his wife Emily and their baby daughter Lizzie. Emily was also expecting their second child at the time, a boy who was born the following year and named after his dad.
