16| The Notorious Nutty Putty Cave Incident
A cry of pain echoed through the walls of stone followed by a prayer, a plea.
“I want to get out of here”, a voice full of moisture quietly said. “If I wasn’t so fat you could pull me out of here”, the voice came again.
“Nah. We’ll get you out,” a strong voice replied “and when we do I’ll be your workout partner”.
And then a shift, a collapse, and both men were rocked with pain. One could retreat, and then other found himself wedged in a pit of rock and dispair.
The rock, too weak to hold the rescue rigs needed to pull him from a definite grave, closed, coiled and refused to loosen its grip.
Engulfed in rock and unable to move, horror’s unfolded themselves as dozens of rescue workers tried to free one man. And in the end, despite their best efforts, this one man would forever be entombed.
Welcome back to tragedy with a view.
*** Be sure to give the podcast episode a listen to hear all of the other information and reactions provided by Kayla and Anne. This is simply the draft of the episode to build off of. It can be found anywhere you listen to podcasts***
The nutty putty cave, located about 55 miles south of Salt Lake City, and west of utah lake. It is a hydrothermal cave that was first found and explored in 1960 by dale green, who gave the cave its name.
It was made up of a clay like material that coated most of the walls, which is why it got its name. Because wet clay is the consistency and texture of peanuts butter (nutty) and it also reminded him of putty. This clay seemed to ooze from the walls and even some of the more solid walls would begin to turn pliable if you pressed too hard against them.
In the 1960s, and explanation for this odd texture was found when an analysis was completed showing that the main component of the ground was actually the same makeup as sand is, only smaller.
Nearly all caves are formed in limestone that is eaten away from acidic ground water which create caves and caverns as the water flows down from the surface of earth.
Nutty putty, however was formed from hydrothermic activity, so the acidic super heated water was pushed up through the crust of the earth.
The cave has a 6 foot wide entrance, called the blow hole, that immediately drops down 15 feet. From there you can go down the big slide, which opens up towards a large cavern, or you can go into the section of the cave called the maze.
Had several narrow and tight passage ways the twisted and turned as you worked your way through the well laid out cave. It contained several passages ways including the birth canal, the aorta crawl, and scout water and the maze. It ran a total of 1,355 feet long and only went to 145 feet deep.
It was considered a good cave for first timers to intermediate cavers and regularly had over 5000 visits per year. The description of what you would encounter in the cave included climbing, crawling and scrambling required, you will need the use of both of your hands. And also that it’s impossible to get lost, so feel free to explore. Boy Scouts were frequently led through the cave system and many entered with just a flash light and sandals on. The cave maintained a comfortable 55 degrees Fahrenheit or 12 degrees Celsius all year round and was mapped last in 2003.
The land was owned by the states school and institutional as trust lands administration, but the timpanogos grotto took over management of the cave system in 2006 as they were the local branch for the national speleological society.
This cave, while rated as a good cave for beginners, was no stranger to rescues.
In 1999, Chris hale and Chris marrow, both 17 got stuck in the birth canal for about 12 hours before being freed.
In 2001 2 13 year old Boy Scouts also got trapped in the birth canal for about 4 hours.
In 2004, 2 more in different incidents a week apart, got stuck and nearly lost their lives in Ed’s push. Which is a passage that doesn’t lead to anywhere.
The first was 16 year old Brock clark standing 5’7” and weighing 140 lbs, was freed from the cave after an intricate system of pulleys were installed. And it took reacuers 14 hours to free him. He was in Ed’s push and had wiggled his was down into a almost verticals shaft, and in an effort to turn around his left leg got bent behind him and he just got wedge in and couldn’t move. rescuers stated that he had to be “wiggled pulled and pushed a millimeter at a time.” Brock ended up spending several days in the hospital because of the fatigue and loss of circulation his body experienced.
The second was David Crowther, who was 23 and a student at bringham young university, who got stuck for about 10 hours.After these incidents, the cave was closed.
In may of 2009, the timpanogos grotto signed a cave management plan into action which reopened the nutty putty. An online booking system was set up and only allowed one group in at a time. It also only allowed daytime access. And the cave was locked at night with a padlock.
At 26 years old, John Edward jones had a good life. Growing up in utah, his father took him and his 5 brothers and 2 sister caving all over Utah. But they had never been to the nutty putty cave.
John was living in Virginia with his wife, Emily, 1 year old daughter, Lizzie, and soon to be born son, while he went to school to become a pediatric cardiologist. John and Emily had been married for 3 and a half years. Prior to actually getting married, both John and Emily who were extremely ambitious people, thought that marriage was too work so they had no intentions of getting married. Emily had been planning to serve on a church mission trip to Madagascar, and this is what spurred John to propose.
One day at the Joseph Saint memorial building located in Salt Lake City John filled at the top area with rose, petals and kind of forest, all of the other visitors to leave. Once Emily arrived, he played her a song that he had written on his guitar, and then proposed. Emily originally said yes, but then gave him the ring back, and they waited two months until she was sure about saying yes before they got married pretty quickly after it was when they found out that she was pregnant and this is again what spurred John into committing to their life together and this is why he ended up in Virginia because that’s where her family was located and he wanted her to be close to her family as she transitioned it to motherhood
In any of 2009, the nutty putty cave was reopened, with strict rules about who, how and when to enter the cave.
John and his family collected in utah at his parents home to celebrate thanksgiving in 2009 and John and his younger brother josh, who was 23 at the time, decides to go with a group of 9 friends to the nutty putty cave to do some exploring.
While he had grown up exploring caves with his father, he hadn’t gone in one since reaching adulthood.
They arrived at about 8 PM and quickly started exploring the cave sliding down at the entry, called the big slide, They entered the largest section of the cave. From there, John and Josh, and two of her other friends, who also had not been to the nutty buddy cave before heard about the birth canal, and wanted to check it out.
John was very confident in his abilities, so he decided to leave the group. He entered into the passage headfirst and wiggled his way, through, knowing that, towards the end of the passage, it would open up into another kind of roomie area, not quite as large as the first room, but still large enough that they would be able to congregate there.
While inching forward in a minuscule army-crawl, wiggling his hips, stomach and fingers, John started to get concerned when the passage did not open up and it just kept getting tighter and tighter and eventually he noticed there was a little lip in the the tunnel and it seem to disappear down so he crawled through headfirst in an attempt to find more room to turn around and that’s when he realized that she this this title, did I open up into anything it just kept getting tighter and tighter and didn’t really have an end.
At this point, John was in a part of the passage that was angled at about a 70° downward slope, and he was completely stuck. He was not able to wiggle his way backwards at all because this section of the tunnel was only 10 inches wide and 14 inches high.
It is thought that John, and heard a different section of the cave called eds push instead of the birth canal, because as push does not lead anywhere, it just kind of ends.
With John being 6 foot and 200 pounds he was really working hard to be able to fit into this this channel that he had found himself in and at one point to wiggle through a new section he sucked in his breath so hard that his chest kind of collapsed in and then when he got through that section, he inhaled, and it allowed everything to expand and this is what got him wedged.
His brother Josh was the one who figured out that John was stuck and after taking a few moments to try to get him pulled out, they decided that Josh had to go leave John behind and call for help. As John tried to wiggle himself backward, his headlamp fell from his head, so now he couldn’t even see around him.
John was stock nearly upside down with one arm pinned underneath of him, and the other one had been forced backwards. Only his navy and black tennis shoes were exposed out of that downward sloped passage, but because of the shape of the tunnel there wasn’t a whole lot of room for someone to be able to pull him and maneuver him.
The first person to arrive to help them out was a woman named Susan motola, or Susie, who was a local rescue volunteer and she had extensive cave exploration experience. She arrived at sometime around midnight, which meant that John had been trapped for over three hours by the time that she arrived. She tied ropes around her ankles so that if she also got stuck she would be able to be pulled out and it took her 30 minutes from entering the cave to get to the cavern the passage John was stuck in started at, and then another 20 minutes to be able to reach John.
first thing that she did when she reached him was ask him how he was doing.Susie noted that even with her petite 5‘3“ frame she was unable to fully extend her arms and legs.
And John responded. Hey Susie, thanks for coming but I really want to get out over the next few hours. Mini mini rescue volunteers in groups and first responder personnel arrived to try to figure out how to get John out. Because of his location they knew that it was extremely difficult to release him and, so after going through a variety of different options and a variety of different ideas, including using 6 gallons of oil as lube.
Susie tried to help John shift positions, so that way he might be able to help assist him self and getting out but she wasn’t strong enough to move him. She also stretched a water bottle down to his right arm, which was the one that was forced back behind him, and he was able to try to get water to flow down his arm and towards his mouth so at least he could get something to drink.
In an attempt to give them a little bit more traction she cut his pants off and then joked that she would be the first one to tell his wife what she had done and that they needed to get pancakes when he got out of there.
They also began drilling near to John, but quickly realized this option wasn’t a good fit as they only penetrated a couple of inches of rock after more than an hour had passed.
Among the complications that were making this rescue, particularly difficult were the fact that as I mentioned, these passages are only several inches to maybe a foot wide and so it’s really really difficult to one maneuver because you’re kind of already having to contort yourself to get into these spaces but this particular section also had a little lip on the entrance of the downward section that was causing hang ups.
the layout of this particular passage that he was in allowed his feet and shins to kind of like poke up out of the downward space, but his knees didn’t come above that lip, which made for a really hard understanding that his legs would probably have to be broken to get him out.
And this was a really difficult decision they pondered because if they broke his legs they feared he would die from the shock, so they had medicine to give him as soon as he was free.
they decided to try using ropes that went through a series of pulleys that were attached to the cave walls to allow rescuers in the large room at the bottom of the big slide, to pull on the rope and be able to pull him free. The pulleys would have to be specifically placed and then drilled into the rock so this began the time consuming process.
Outside of the cave was Emily, John’s parents, 137 rescuers, volunteers, emergency services and a helicopter waited for John to be pulled free.
Being upside down means your heart is having to work extra hard in order to Pump blood out of the brain and the lungs begin to collect fluid. And the heart then has to work harder to pump blood to other vital organs. I. Short, being upside down for an extended period of time means that your heart has to work too hard and your brain has too much fluid, and before along the entire system begins to fail.
Trauma physician, Doug Murdock was on scene, knowing that blood and fluids would be pooling in John’s brain and his lungs capillaries would begin to burst leaking toxins into John‘s body, and those toxins would quickly go to his heart and his head and kill him. Additionally, the extra blood pooling in his head would put pressure on his brain, making it more difficult for him to not only process what was happening but later have control over his body. Dr. Murdoch estimated that the rescuers had 8 to 10 hours to free John and get him back on some sort of horizontal plane before his body will start to shut down.
While setting up the pulley system, a radio was able to be lowered in enough that John could talk to Emily. They spoke and prayed together and then it was time to start pulling.
Every time they pulled the rope, if things weren’t at the right angle or if the pulling team didn’t have enough power, they stopped to add another pulley. In total they ended up with 15 pulleys and each of these pulleys, took about an hour to install. After 19 hours they finally had a complete system in place and they were having success. The 8 man team (that included Susie) in the large cavern pulling had to pause frequently because John’s legs were in so much pain- just from the lack of blood flow.
On the 3rd pull, John was high enough that he was able to look up and see Ryan Shultz, the rescuer who was in passage with John. He smiled, and the team pulled again.
At this point, Ryan was able to stretch a tube down to John so that way he was able to get water and Gatorade and he was really there to just kind of be moral support for John and let him know that he was not alone in this cave.
John and Ryan talked extensively about John’s family and learned that John’s son was due to be born on Ryan’s birthday. Ryan talked John through moments of panic where he thrashed violently in the rock and prayed together. Ryan admits he cried more than once, especially when he held the radio down to John so that he could talk to Emily.
Back in the cavern, the team of 8 fell back at the same time they heard a painful shout echo through the cave. They had no idea what happened, until Ryan came crawling from the hole with blood all over his face.
The pulley that was at the opening of the passage John was stuck in broke away from the cave wall and basically went directly into Ryan’s face. The pulley didn’t fail, it was the rock that had broken off and with an awful realization, the momentum of John’s body falling back down the passage, lodged him farther in than where he bagan. It is estimated that the width of the passage he was now in was only 8 ½ inches wide.
Ryan had several facial injuries including a potential broken jaw and his eyes started to swell shut and his tongue was split almost in half and his upper lip would end up swelling so badly that it quote drooped over his chin. when Ryan met the pulling crew, which included his father, he asked his dad to go down and be with John. He insisted that someone go to be with him immediately.
When Ryan’s dad, Dave, arrived he noticed that John began having some breathing issues and decided that pulling from the legs was no longer the best option, and crawled in as deep as he could to wrap a rope around John’s waist.
While doing this, dave, himself, got stuck and once he wiggled free, he began drilling a new area for the pulley. Exhausted. Dave left the cave and was replaced by Brandon kowallis. But, when Brandon arrived he was unable to get a response from John at all.
Shortly after this, a paramedic climbed in to check for a pulse and then declared John dead at 11:57 pm, November 25, 2009, after a harrowing 27 hours of work trying to free him. His determined cause of death is suffocation and cardiac arrest.
Initially, the following morning, thanksgiving day, attempts were made to remove John’s body from the cave but ultimately Because of rigormortus, and the already difficult to access location John was in, and the desire to not put more people at risk, it was decided that the cave would be John’s grave.
After a week of deliberations on whether they would seal that passage specifically or if they would seal the entire cave, the entire cave was closed to the public and the opening was sealed shut with cement.
A plaque in memory of John was placed at the entrance by his family.
On June 15, 2 days after his due date, Emily gave birth to their baby boy and named him John.
Sources:
https://cavehaven.com/nutty-putty-cave-accident/
https://allthatsinteresting.com/nutty-putty-cave
https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geology/nutty-putty-cave.htm
https://interestingengineering.com/culture/nutty-putty-cave-death-young-caver
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/07/10/nutty-putty-were-going/
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/07/09/nutty-putty-i-really/
https://www.climb-utah.com/WM/nutty.htm
https://museumfacts.co.uk/nutty-putty-cave/
