A rescuer who was the last person to see a man suffer the ‘worst death imaginable’ after he became stuck upside down in a cave has revealed the heartbreaking reason why he could not save him.
John Jones died after becoming trapped for more than 24 hours in the Nutty Putty Cave in Utah in 2009 after he and his friends decided to explore it.
The 26-year-old medical student, who considered himself a keen and experienced explorer, was described to have ‘essentially crawled into his own grave’ upon his death more than 15 years ago.
After setting out to explore the extremely tight ‘Birth Canal’ area of the cave, John, who stood at 6ft tall, took a wrong turn and mistakenly entered a tiny passageway head-first which measured just 10 inches by 18 inches and became stuck.
Trapped in the crevice and unable to turn or move backwards, the 26-year-old father endured ’27 hours of claustrophobic hell’ while his brother Josh could only watch on helplessly.
Cave explorer and YouTuber Brandon Kowallis was the last person to see John alive and despite his tireless efforts to save him, he explained how the rescue mission was impossible from the start.
Brandon has spoken about the doomed ordeal in a blog post, recalling the mission on November 25, 2009 at Nutty Putty.
By the time he joined, rescuers had already been working to save John for several hours, but he was ‘quickly going downhill’.
Having been stuck upside down for several hours, the blood in his body that normally flowed to his feet had instead rushed to his head.
He was starting to have trouble breathing and his heart was beating twice as fast in order to counteract the gravity to push the continuous flow of blood out of his brain.
‘He was in and out of consciousness and had started talking about seeing angels and demons around him’, the cave explorer explained.
Brandon was asked to crawl down the impossibly tight shaft to check on John, along with fellow rescuer Debbie. What he found haunts him to this day.
Brandon could hear a gurgling breath – an indication that fluid was building up in John’s lungs, and his legs were twitching violently.
‘It looked very bleak. I wondered if it was even possible to get him beyond this point’, Brandon said.
The rescuer studied the rigging that had been set up by other emergency workers and John’s position, trying to find hope. But the reality was cruel.
‘It looked like he could only be lifted another foot or two in his current position because of where the webbing was anchored around his knees. After a foot or two his feet would hit the ceiling. And then once he reached the ceiling, there was no way to tilt him to a horizontal position’, Brandon explained.
‘And then once he reached the ceiling, there was no way to tilt him to a horizontal position. He would have to do it himself, but he was now unconscious.
‘And even if we could get him into a horizontal position, he would then have to maneuver 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’.
The only remaining solution was to use a jackhammer to widen the narrow tunnel – a desperate, brutal option that could have left John with shattered bones.
‘He would be cut up very badly and probably end up with several broken bones, but if nothing else would work, that seemed like the best option.’
Brandon spent hours chipping and hammering away at the rocks, but even that proved difficult.
‘My estimate was anywhere from three to seven days to get back to where John was’.
During this time, a radio was brought down so that John’s family could speak to him.
‘I think it was his father, mother, and wife who spoke to him, telling him that they loved him and were praying for him and that his father had given him a blessing.
‘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’, Brandon said.
Rescuers had to think of their next step, but just before midnight struck, Brandon was asked to check John’s vitals, and noticed how his body was close to the temperature of the rocky walls of the cave.
He reported his findings to a paramedic who was able to get down to John.
‘John Edward Jones was pronounced dead at 11:52, I believe it was.’
John’s death was put down as cardiac arrest and suffocation.
Although John’s wife Emily insisted that her husband’s body be recovered, it was soon decided that it was too dangerous to recover it.
To prevent a future accident the entrance to the passage was collapsed with controlled explosives and filled with concrete.
The entrance to the cave was turned into a makeshift memorial for the family with a plaque also installed in memory of John.
John left behind his wife Emily and their baby daughter Lizzie.
Emily was also expecting their second child at the time of the accident. A baby boy was born the following year who she named after his father.
