Maxine Harrison
The last person to see the doomed Nutty Putty cave explorer alive explained the reason why he couldn't save him, despite rescuers' tireless efforts.
The thought of death is understandably daunting for many, but no one wants to die a painful death, right? Unfortunately, this explorer didn’t get a choice in that.
The Nutty Putty Cave rescue happened on November 25, 2009, when 26-year-old medical student John Edward Jones became trapped in the Utah cave for more than 24 hours on a venture with his friends.
After venturing through the incredibly tight 'birth canal' section of the cave, he mistakenly took a wrong turn, leading him to a tiny passageway head-first, which was just 10 inches by 18 inches.
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This is when he became stuck and unable to move.
John became so trapped that he was unable to turn or move backwards at all and therefore was stuck in this position for over 24 hours. Sadly, his brother, who went with him on the adventure along with his friends could only helplessly watch.
The last person to see John alive was cave explorer and YouTuber Brandon Kowallis and in a blog post from last year, Brandon explained how despite his efforts to save John, the rescue mission was impossible from all angles to achieve.
Before Brandon’s arrival, rescuers had already been working on trying to get John out, with them giving him a radio so he could talk to his family. So by the time Brandon arrived, John was he was 'quickly going downhill'.
Excruciatingly, the inverted position that John was in meant that the blood that usually should be rushing to his feet was instead rushing right to his head. It also meant he had trouble breathing and the pace of his heart was double the usual pace to counteract the gravity to push the continuous flow of blood out of his brain.
Explaining how John was in his last living moments, Brandon said: "He was in and out of consciousness and had started talking about seeing angels and demons around him."
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Brandon went to crawl down the tight shaft to check on John in his last moments, and what he found remans to be incredibly haunting.
Brandon heard a gurgling breath, which indicated that sadly, fluid was building up in John’s lungs. His legs were also violently twitching.
In the pursuit of finding hope if John could be rescued, unfortunately, it was clear that this was impossible and too dangerous for humans to do.
"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," the explorer explained.
"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."
Shortly afterwards, John suffered a cardiac arrest and took his final breath.
Sadly, it was deemed too dangerous to retrieve his body, so the entrance to the cave was permanently sealed and made into a makeshift memorial for the family, alongside a plaque in memory of John.