A man whose brother tragically died after getting stuck in the infamous Nutty Putty Cave once revealed how he knew a ‘really serious’ mistake had been made.
John Edward Jones was a 26-year-old medical student from Utah who believed he was finally exploring a notoriously cramped room in the landmark via a turnaround.
However, the amateur spelunker found himself wedged headfirst in a 10-inch by 18-inch fissure, unable to move.
Despite rescue attempts stretching a horrific 27 hours, Jones’ body was unable to be recovered.
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Paramedics concluded he died of a cardiac arrest caused by the strain placed upon his body over many hours by his inverted position.
The Mormon, who was expecting his second child with his wife Emily Jones-Sanchez, headed into the Nutty Putty Cave with his brother Josh and nine of their friends on November 24, 2009.
The six-foot man initially explored a large room in the hydrothermal cave, known as the ‘Big Slide’, before he and three others went out to find the notorious ‘The Birth Canal’.
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However, Jones found himself in an unmapped passageway and moved into a narrow vertical downward fissure.
Realising his brother was wedged into the gap, Josh returned to the surface to rally explorers to help his brother get out.
In an interview, Josh detailed exactly when he knew his sibling was doomed.
“Seeing his feet and seeing how swallowed he was by the rock, that's when I knew it was serious," Josh told the St. Lake Tribune. "It was really serious."
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Experts, including YouTuber Brandon Kowallis, later arrived on the scene with hopes of stopping Jones from dying in one of the ‘most horrifying ways imaginable’.
In a blog post, Kowallis recalled how the student was ‘in and out of consciousness’ when he arrived, allegedly ‘talking about seeing angels and demons around him’.
The cave explorer then lamented that getting him out of the tight fissure was ‘pretty much impossible’ because of this unconscious state.
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“Even if we could get him into a horizontal position, he would then have to manoeuvre the most difficult sections of the passage he was trapped in.
“If he were conscious and had his full strength, there was a minute chance he could possibly do it. But even if that was the case, it looked grim.”
“To get a 210-pound, unconscious person out seemed pretty much impossible,” he added.
Despite using a jackhammer for hours to chip away at Jones’ stony prison, the team realised time wasn’t on their side; it could have taken up to seven days to release him.
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Work was temporarily paused as the rescuers regrouped to figure out what to do next.
The struggling man’s family - including Josh - used this opportunity to send him well-wishes via a radio transmission.
“His wife mentioned a feeling of peace, that everything would be OK. She talked to him about 5 to 10 minutes before I told her that we needed to get back to working at getting him out,” Kowallis claimed.
Before work resumed, it was announced that Jones had succumbed to his condition soon after hearing the broadcasts.
A plaque in his honour has been posted outside the now-collapsed Utah site, acting as a makeshift memorial for his family and friends.
Ella Scott