Morbid - Episode 512: Nutty Putty Cave Incident

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

Discovered in Utah County in 1960, Nutty Putty Cave quickly became a popular destination for amateur and professional cavers and spelunkers as a kind of bucket list cave of considerable difficulty. Despite its popularity, beginning in the late 1980s, the cave became notorious for the number of explorers who became trapped and required emergency assistance to escape its twisting, narrow, and poorly mapped passageways.In late November 2009, the inherent risk and dangers of Nutty Putty Cave made national news when twenty-six-year-old college student John Edward Jones became trapped upside-down in an uncharted and perilously narrow section of the cave. Thank you to the incredible Dave White of Bring me the Axe Podcast for research assistance!ReferencesAshton, Katie. 2006. "Nutty Putty Cave entrance getting a gate." Daily Herald, May 2: 23.Associated Press. 2006. "Utah's caves remain open one year after Provo tragedy." Daily Herald, August 14: 8.—. 2009. Man dies after day trapped upside-down in cave. November 25. Accessed October 12, 2023. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna34157005.—. 2009. Man dies after day trapped upside-down in cave. November 25. Accessed October 13, 2023. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna34157005.—. 2009. "Recovery of caver's body deemed too dangerous." Roanoke Times, November 28: 4.—. 2004. "Teen stuck in cave is rescued." Salt Lake Tribune, August 22: 20.Cabero, Alex. 2009. Nutty Putty Cave discoverer doesn't want it to be closed. November 27. Accessed October 12, 2023. https://www.ksl.com/article/8824435/nutty-putty-cave-discoverer-doesnt-want-it-to-be-closed.Canham, Matt. 2004. "BYU student freed from cave." Salt Lake Tribune, Septmber 5: 21.LaPlante, Matthew. 2009. "Popular cave draws ill-prepared adventurers." Salt Lake Tribune, November 25.Nokkentved, N.S. 2005. "State may close popular cave." Daily Herald, June 26: 21.Outside Magazine. 2002. Exploring Caving Accidents, Deaths, and Rescues in the United States. August 3. Accessed October 12, 2023. https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/exploration-survival/exploring-caving-accidents-deaths-and-rescues-united-states/.Peterson, Chris. 2005. "Father says daughter died doing what she loved." Daily Herald, August 19: 1.Reporter-Times. 1999. "Deputies free teens from cave." Reporter-Times, July 29: 3.Tanner, Steve. 1999. "Teens spend long day in dark." Daily Herald, July 29: 1.Waqar, Jehanzeb. 2022. The Nutty Putty Cave and the untimely death of a young caver. December 15. Accessed October 12, 2023. https://interestingengineering.com/culture/nutty-putty-cave-death-young-caver.Whitehurst, Lindsay. 2018. Nutty Putty: ‘I really, really want to get out’. July 9. Accessed October 13, 2023. https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/07/09/nutty-putty-i-really/.—. 2018. Nutty Putty: ‘We’re going to get you out’. July 10. Accessed October 13, 2023. https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/07/10/nutty-putty-were-going/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Hey, Weirdo Zanash. And I'm Alena. And this is morbid. [♪ a fucking day it has been. You guys, we have had a day. It started off awesome. Yeah. It started off with like fucking yummy ass food, fucking delicious coffee.

Like awesome coffees, you know, friend shifts, carottery, I'm shipping carottery, wow, this is a murder. And then a bird flew in my house. And I think, like, I'm, tell me if I'm wrong, I know you will. I think that's supposed to be a bad omen.

And then I looked it up and it was like, in some places, it's a good omen. So I think it's just whatever the fuck you feel. Well, when you said that, I was like, okay, well I'm choosing to look at it as a good omen. Because I think that's like, you know, that's it. I'm gonna take it as a good omen. And let the record show that me and Mikey saved the bird.

It's true. They did. They got it out of the house. You mean, so sweet. And so sadly. But that happened. So that was weird. And it kind of interrupted the flow of the day. But we were kind of laughing about it being like, oh my god, that could have been so bad.

I'm so glad we found it. And then all of a sudden, we're in the middle of doing our recording thing. And all of the alarms in my house start going off. And they're just going, they're going fire. Fire. Fire. So we go running out of the room. John is holding my youngest and like in panic.

And it's like we let's get out of the house. And we go and look into my in-laws side of the house. Yep. And John, I couldn't see it at first, but John looks out in there. He goes, oh my god. And I was like, and in my head, I'm like, oh my God, there's flames. Like we a half of our house is about to burn down. I was like, I was about to panic. And I was fully thought we were about to be like pushed back by something. Oh my God.

And he was like, so I look and there is water pouring from the ceiling, ceiling fan and the smoke detector. Like pouring is an understatement. Like a waterfall. Like it was in rain. It was raining like down poor monsoon raining in that room. And so he was like, just get everybody out of here. I don't know what's going on.

So he went running upstairs to see if something was setting this off, like what the hell's going on? We still don't know what's happening. We have a plumber here. And even the plumber was like, even the plumber is like, what the fuck is going on? But I figured it out. Yeah. I figured it out. So this is a real warning. It's a real lesson that we can all learn about manifesting things properly. Always be detailed. I told you. Did I tell you? I can get Willie Nile a little bit about my manifestations, and this was one of them.

So I love Guillermo del Toro. I just do. I promise this connects. I'm not just saying this at a moment. Almost. Maybe I will just say that. And I love Guillermo tellingons. I love Guillermo Tons. But he famously has a rain room that he writes in. It inspires him the sound of rain.

And you've been talking about this for like a year. Forever. And I've been talking about how, oh my goodness, I would love a rain room. Just someday I want my writing room to have like rain. You know, like it would be so inspiring because I love the rain and I love like gloomy weather. I've been saying I want a rain room for a long time and I wasn't specific.

I didn't say I want... Giro Modeltoros. Giro Modeltoros. Exact rain room. No, I just said a rain room and you know what? A rain room I got. Mm.

So like, although this sucks and I don't know what's going on here, I can't be mad because I think I did this. And I can't be mad because after all of that, she goes, oh, I need a taco. It's true I said, does that mean I can get a boho? Boho boho. She lit her. And here I am, sipping on my boho boho.

You little bit. That's exactly what it happened. and here I am sipping on my bob oh, bob you'll all be up that's exactly what happened fucking love of a-ha-blast as I'm watching the rain water just pour down through the ceiling I love the rain, fall down it took my dream as Hillary duff son turned in with her hands in her front pockets hey guys

and just delivery duff son turned in with her hands in her front pockets. Hey guys. And just... Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! She... as that happened, I said, you know what?

Give me a taco. Who needs this taco? And we did it. We got the little soft shell. But you know what? We're here now. And that's what the day has been. And our bellies are full of taco and baha.

And we're here to have a blast. To talk about a truly tragic and truly uncomfortable story. So I apologize ahead of time. Trigger warning, we're talking about spelunking. So claustrophobia. claustrophobia, you don't like it. This is gonna be tough for you. You should go.

We're going to be talking about Nadi Putty Cave and the death of John Edward Jones. This story is horrific. Terrific. Yeah. And such a freak accident. You told me about this for the first time, I think, this past year. Yeah. I hadn't heard of it before.

Wow. It's horrifying. So, but we're going to get into it. We're going to talk a little bit about, obviously, we're going to talk about this particular tragic death. But we're also going to talk about some rescues that happen that ended with the people coming out alive, just so you can see how treacherous this kind of thing is. And this cave in particular is a very challenging cave. Is it closed now? It is closed off now.

But this happens more often than not. That this particular thing, like, you know, this is horrific. But people get caught a lot and have to be rescued. And it's in there. And a lot of people are inches from it becoming a tragedy. Spalunking is not for me. So if you are a Spalunker, just please be careful. Be careful. I don't want you to get hurt. No, no. This stressed me out so much and I'm like, I don't know any Spalunkers, but if you're a listener

in a Spalunker, just fucking be careful. I'm worried about you. I'm worried about you, but I want you to have your experience. Just be safe. Okay. That's all I can ask. So discovered in Utah County in 1960, Nuddy Putty Cave quickly became one of the most popular destinations for cavers, is what we can also call them, amateur and professional. So this is definitely what we'll get into soon is that this is a cave that is very much for professionals, but amateurs come a lot. And they see if they can do it.

They tend to be the ones that need to be rescued. It actually became kind of bucket list cave of great difficulty. Like people, there was a time when it was like, if you don't hit nutty putty cave, like that's the one. Are you even a cave or slash spulonger? But despite its popularity,

beginning in the late 1980s, the cave became notorious for a number of explorers becoming trapped and requiring emergency assistance to escape very twisty, very narrow, and poorly mapped passageways. Oh, no. So when Salt Lake City resident Dale Green discovered what is now known as a nutty, putty cave, he had no idea that he and his friends had stumbled upon

what would become one of Utah's most famous and notorious cave systems. According to Green, a local rancher had actually noticed some irregularities and he had noticed some warm vapors coming out of the ground on his property. And this is, he discovered this, and then he knew that Green was an amateur caver, so he let him know that this could be an unknown cave. The warm vapors are what tipped him off. He was like, something could be happening under there. That's cool.

You might want to check this out. Green told a reporter in 2009, everybody who goes through that cave comes out covered with clay. When we went in, there was no sign whatsoever that anyone had been in there. So throughout the second half of the 20th century, Western Utah became a very popular destination for amateur and professional spelunkers and spi allogists. Speelologist, that's fun to say. And a spi allogist is just a scientist who studies caves and going into caves.

It's all revolving around going into caves. Caves. And so, Western Utah had become this very popular destination for them due to the large number of extensive cave systems there. Cave systems freak me out. Yes, same. It's so mysterious to me, and it's so mystical,

and I'm so fascinated by it, but I'm like, I'm respectfully terrified by it. It's kind of like the ocean. I was literally just gonna say, like the ocean. There's too much unknown. I respect it. Yeah, I'm terrified by it. It's kind of like the ocean. I was literally just gonna say, like the ocean. There's too much unknown. I respect it. Yeah, I'm terrified of it. Correct.

Caves respect them. Terrified of them. But like many of the caves across the American West, the Nuddy-Puddy Cave is a solution cave. That's that. Now, a solution cave is created when weekly acidic rainwater seeps through the soils and percolates through fractures in the bedrock and dissolves the rock.

But in the case of nutty putty cave, the limestone was eroded from the bottom up, slowly eaten away by boiling water forced upwards from deep within the earth. So fuck! Creating what is known as a hypogenic cave. So it's really fascinating. I was gonna say we're in science class right now.

It's really, really fascinating. Like thinking about water that has been boiled by deep within the earth. Yeah. Something about that is just like, whoa, like that's just like, that's just the planet, just being badass. It's like giving Sunnydale. It's giving Sunnydale.

It is giving Sunnydale, isn't it? Yeah, it just feels like, it really does feel like supernatural in some ways. It does. Even though it's like the most scientific. Yeah. Rebased in reality should I've ever heard. It's like it has this wild supernatural feel to it.

Or this kuku nuts. It feels mystical. It is mystical, I feel. It all feels very, caves are mystical as fuck. And they're misty, so there you go. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Oh my god, I wish that I could just like send somebody to do all of my holiday shopping,

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Happy holidays! Now in the process of its creation, the viscous clay within the cave wall gets heated, and the process transforms from hard sedimentary rock into a squishy, elastic substance, kind of similar to what we all know as silly putty, like that toy. I see where we're going with this. Now, when they first emerged from the caves, green, the guy we were talking about before, green and his friends began referring to this cave as silly putty cave because of that substance seeping out of the walls. But eventually, they started talking about it and saying it was called nutty putty cave because they thought it sounded better.

Okay. Which I kind of, I agree. nutty putty cave sounds. Yeah, Nuddy putty is better than silly. Just got a good feel to it. As word about the cave made its way around the cave in community, the name stuck and it's been known as Nuddy putty cave ever since. Now interestingly enough, green and his fellow cave friends were not really impressed by this new cave. Really? First, he said, quote, it didn't really have anything pretty in it. And there aren't a lot of places where you can stand up.

So you're just pretty much crawling around all the time and you get all muddy. That sounds fucking terrible. Sounds like a fucking nightmare to me. Yeah. That's my health. I know there are two things I don't want to do. I'll do them if I have to,

but I don't want to run. And I don't want to crawl. I don't want to do either of my things. I learned how to walk, and I'm cool with that. Yeah, right? I feel like. If I can't stand up for long periods of time, like I, no, I'd even thinking about it

as giving me the willies. I just, I'm like, I'm getting stressed. Yeah. Strangely enough, despite all of this, it, like I said before, it became pretty popular with locals and cavers. And green later recalled, I called it a date cave. The kids from BYU take dates out there.

If I'm, no, no, no, no, no, it holds on. Because if a mother fucker ever approached me, and was like, hey, girlie, do you want to go spillunking on our date? I'd be like, ah, respectfully, go fuck yourself. Respectfully, no sir. No, no, it's a date cave. I mean, it was a date cave. Stop it. Yeah, stop it. There is nothing romantic about that. Not for me, but for some people, I guess it's all the danger is romantic.

No, I, this whole thing has really given me claustrophobia doesn't get me going. No, it does not get me going as well, but you know, to each of us. We're not here to shame. So you know, whatever gets you going, DK, we're Wow. So located just outside Salt Lake City on the western side of Utah Lake, the entrance to Nuddy Pettikev sits on blowhole hill in Utah County. I mean, it sounds terrifying to me. But I don't do tight spaces.

You enter through a six-foot wide opening, and then you must climb down a 15-foot drop that opens into a chamber with branches to the right and left. That together, make up nearly 1,400 feet of tunnels at a depth of 145 feet below the Earth's surface. Oh, so you're just like inside of Earth? Who's in the Earth?

No. Yeah, you're all up. And that's what caves are. You're just in the Earth. Now, I'll the earth? No. Yeah, you're all up. And that's what caves are. You're just in the earth. No, I'll be on the earth. I'll be in the earth. I'm gonna stand on earth. Yeah.

Now, will you go left or will you go right? Is the question. I'm actually not there and I never would be. If you ever were though, would you go to the left or would you go to the right instinctually? I don't know, because I just wouldn't be there. Mikey, what about you? Would you go right?

Okay, right. Well, that's the big slide. This is a fairly large chamber that leads down into a much tighter section of the cave known as the birth canal. You chose wrong. Which leads to even tighter sections, somehow, that are referred to as the aorta crawl

and vein alley. They're named for their resemblance of the circulatory system. That's interesting though. The earth just like created that. Yeah. Isn't that wild? That is cool. And then if you go left, well now you're going to a series of wider and easier to explore sections of the cave, referred to as the maze, the big room, and the crack. I'm just not there. I'm not there either. Like you're kind of doing a goose bumps, choose your own adventure here, kind of things.

I'm not reading. Sponker be where you choose the scares, what this is. I like that. That was clever. But either way you go, the paths lead to a dead end. And the only way in and out are through the opening on Blahohill, whole hill. Hate that.

There's one way and one way out. Oh, I don't like that at all. Now, according to Brandon Koalas, who is one of the spialliologists who surveyed Nuddy Putty in 2003, the cave system gained popularity in the later decades of the 20th century, because it was relatively easy to access. And the fact that it kind of offered a challenge once you got in there to more experience cavers, that was really what the draw was. That you could access it very easily,

but it was a challenge once you were in there. That makes sense. Koala said, quote, the majority of it is not something you're going to get stuck in, but there are some spots, some nooks and crannies where people might try to challenge themselves by trying to squeeze through. No.

Now, by the early 2000s, officials at the school and institutional trust lands administration who own and manage the cave in the surrounding land, they began getting nervous about the numbers of people that were traveling to Utah, specifically to go into Nadi Pettikeyev. Thousands of people every year were coming for it specifically.

Wow. And there were some who came that have very little experience. And this is way too challenging cave for that. Right. In response, the trust turned over management of the cave system to the Timpanago Scrado, a local chapter of the National Speleological Society. This group organizes expeditions,

but they organize them with experienced professionals to guide you. Oh, okay, that was a good way to do it. By handing off the management to the grotto, the land trust was hoping to avoid any accidents involving cavers who were just not experienced enough to traverse the Nutty Puddy Cave without a guide. So a grotto volunteer named John said in 2006,

we were hoping that by limiting access to those with the proper gear, proper leadership, preparations and the appropriate skills, we could make sure that only the most prepared people were going into that cave. But there was still a rising number of incidents that were occurring every year, and a source had to admit, even with everything that has been put in place to help guide people into proper preparation,

going into the cave can still be dangerous. Yeah, of course. So the tragic case of John Edward Jones in 2009, which we will get to, was a nationally shared story, but it was not the first of its kind to involve emergency rescue attempts for cavers in Utah. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a number of incidents would cause Utah officials to very much reconsider the state's approach to caving and spelunking enthusiasts. Really? And how they were going to keep them safe. On July 27, 1999, Chris Merrow and Chris Hale, both 17 years old, spend the evening camped

along the edge of Utah Lake. And then the next morning, they woke up and a little after 9 a.m., they made their way to Nuddy-Puddy Cave. Now, according to a spokesperson for the Utah County Sheriff's Department, both boys were well prepared. They had done these things before, not Nuddy-Puddy Cave, but they had... Similar for being experiences. And they knew exactly what they had Cable-per-forthing experiences. And they knew exactly what they were getting themselves into when they entered the cave.

Okay. Now, they had made it through the initial drop and the big slide without any trouble. So, when you say the initial drop, is that like you just slide down? I think you have to use gear to drop yourselves inside. Oh, wow. Okay. Like, I think it's that kind of drop. Gotcha. And then you, that's the other thing.

Like I encourage you to look into cave-ing and spul-unking. Because it's interesting. The fact that people just do this is really fascinating to me. I'm like, man, you are a superhero. Like super brave. Because I couldn't do it. I don't have the, I don't not have the bravado to do it. The courage and I don't have the skills or the strength for that matter.

I am way too thick. I am way too thick. I'm a way too thick. I'm smiggy to go smell off the game. I'm smiggy. I just couldn't, I don't have the mental strength. You would be great at it. I do not have the mental strength for that. And I think you need to be physically so strong.

And like, you're so strong. Have you seen your biceps? Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, the people on the screen saw the biceps. You saw the biceps. You have crazy biceps. But I just could mentally, I could not do this.

No, I don't have the mental capacity to, no courage here. No. For this. I mean, I stand in awe. So it's one of those things where it's almost like you're kind of like going down the side of a mountain where they like have the... Yeah, they literally have, I think, lower it's almost like you're kind of like going down the side of a mountain where they like have a little bit of...

Yeah, they literally have, I think, lower themselves down with like a pulley and everything like that. And then you have to like pull yourself back up at the end. That's so scary. Yeah, it's like a lot. And that's the thing. It takes real physical strength. And I would think agility of your mind.

Absolutely. You know, to know where to put certain gear in. Oh yeah, it's a skill set that I can't even fathom. Yeah. It takes nowhere to put certain gear in. Oh, yeah. It's a skill set that I can't even fathom. It's really like fascinating. But they made that initial drop. The big slide, they went down with no trouble, and then they reached the birth canal around 10.30 a.m.

Okay. According to the sheriff's spokesperson, they were just too big for the area they tried to go through. Oh, no. And both boys quickly found themselves stuck in the small opening about 120 feet underground. No, shut up. The spokesperson said the birth canal is a narrow part of the cave

that leads to all kinds of interesting areas. But the area is so tight, hikers have to suck in their stomach and chest to get through. If you don't do it right, you get stuck. I said take a deep breath. Yes, same. So rescue workers responded to the call for help that morning and spent nearly 12 hours, slowly wiggling each boy forward

and chipping away small pieces of limestone to pull them through. 12 hours. Oh my God. By around 10.30 p.m. rescue workers had freed Chris Hale from the cave. And Mero was pulled out a few hours later. So they both survived. They survived. And physically they suffered only minor injuries in some abrasions. But really, it was just the fact that they spent 12 hours in a really stressful, scary and uncomfortable situation. That was the real bummer here.

And it was wild because after the rescue, it was successful and it was clear that the boys were safe and relatively unharmed. Yeah. The rescue workers kind of had a sense of humor about the whole thing. I guess you kind of have to after that. Yeah, I guess so.

One said, I suggested we tie a rope around their ankles and pull them out with a four-wheeler, or they could just perform a Caesarian section on the birth canal. Well, so you're like, they really set up for that there. It's kinda funny. I wonder if they ever went spolonging again.

Right? I would love to know. I know, I feel like that. I feel like people who are brave enough to do it in the first place always end up doing it again. Mm-hmm. Because I think they like, people who are brave enough to do it in the first place always end up doing it again. Because I think people who are brave and skilled enough to do in the first place know what mistakes they made. So they're determined to do it again and not make those mistakes.

That's true. But who knows? Now, a few years later in the summer of 2004, there was a situation that didn't really inspire any light-hearted size of relief afterwards. 16-year-old Brock Clark, who did live through this. Okay. But it wasn't as like... The first one was treacherous.

It was scary. It took a long time. Obviously, I myself could not lay in any position for 12 hours and being stuck between rock. So that was a horrific rescue as well, but this one was like, had a slightly different edge to it. Okay. So 16 year old Brock Clark, who had been spelunking with friends in Nutty Putty, got stuck in an upside down position. Oh my God.

And roughly the same part of the cave that pinned kale and marrow in place only a few years earlier. It was Friday night when he and his friends had gone into the cave. It was late in August. There were plenty of you spend the afternoon in the cave and then just return home a few hours later. When they reached the entrance to the birth canal, Brock entered head first into the opening and was trying to lead his friends into the next chamber because like we said before,

the birth canal leads into like the really cool parts of the cave. So you have to go through that to get to the cool ones. But it was dark in that part of the cave. And because of this, Clark had taken off, it had been taken off course. And ended up finding himself wedged into a small crevasse at a very downward angle. And it was not the birth canal. It was like, no. The wrong one. And he realized he had made a mistake.

And in a panic, he tried to twist and wriggle his way out of the space, but that wedged him even tighter. And his left leg ended up being pinned up behind him. Oh my God. Now, once they realized that Brock wasn't going to be able to get out of this position, one of his friends stood watch with him while the others went to get help. They got the sheriff's department and got there around 6 p.m. and rescuers followed them

back into the cave. And it took a while to get to the area, and hours later, they were still trying to slowly extract him from the place he was wedged in. A representative from the sheriff's Office told reporters, Brock did as much shimmying as he could, but it was taking hours and hours of gently and slowly pushing and pulling and trying to coach him and doing everything they could to get him out before he was finally freed

in the early morning hours. Wow. Now, like I said, this whole situation seems similar to hell and Marrow's upon first read, but it wasn't... It was basically that hell and marrow, the two 17-year-olds, were essentially lying prone. So they were lying in a regular laying down position, face down.

They weren't tilted at an angle. They were just laying down. Okay. Like on their bellies. Yeah, just laying on their bellies in a prone position. Got it. So very uncomfortable, personally, mentally, I don't know if I could have gotten through that the way that they did for 12 hours. So I'm saying that for sure. But this just happened to have the added tragedy of him being up tilted down. And also he was in that downward angle position and his left leg was like brutally pinned up behind him. So blood had rushed to his head for hours. And because his leg was pinned, circulation had been disrupted on the entire left side of his body.

Oh my God. So when he was taken from the cave after 12 plus hours, he couldn't walk or stand without help. He was also described as very, very fatigued and weak and ended up needing to be hospitalized and stabilized. But he didn't have to get his leg empty to know anything. And fortunately, Brock Clark survived his terrifying ordeal, but it was really situations like this

and the other ones like Hail and Marrow that earned this particular section of Nutty Putty, the name the Scout Eater. The Scout Eater? Yeah. That's so upsetting. Now, just a few weeks after Clark's horrific incident, 23-year-old David Crowther,

a Brigham Youngyum university student, became stuck between two large rocks and nutty putty after he and a group of friends went to explore the cave late one evening. Once they realized they couldn't move him, his friends called for help, and rescue workers were able to use an air chipper to free him after more than seven hours.

So that's the thing about these rescues. It's not like someone flies in and they take you out of the thing and they like, don't do that again, be careful. It's hours and hours of you being stuck wherever you're stuck. And think about mentally what that would do to you because you'd be sitting there being like, am I ever gonna get out of this or? That's the thing.

Like you'd be like, just gonna become a lost cause at some point. What's gonna happen here? Like that's horrific. And I think that's unfortunately what happened when that ends up, what is what happens to John Jones because eventually he realizes like,

I'm gonna die here, aren't I? Oh my God. And it's like they, and they couldn't help him. It's just like, that just made my heart sink. It's awful. So according to the National Speleology Society, it is an average of about two million people visit caves annually across the United States. Most of them go

quote on low-risk at risk expeditions or on guided cave tours. Of those, roughly 50 per year require emergency assistance after getting trapped. And interestingly, 83% of those are men. I wonder if it's because of their build. Yeah, maybe that's what it is. Now, given the large number of visitors to America's cave systems every year, serious and-or fatal incidents are,

they're pretty infrequent, relatively. Yeah. But they tend to be so shocking when they do happen that they prompt calls for officials to take action. Yeah. In Utah, it wasn't just the incidence of emergency rescue that were raising alarms, but the general conditions of the caves themselves as well. John Jasper told a reporter in 2005,

it smells like a gym when you first go in. Ew. The article that this was comes from was focused on, like, you know, the general safety of Nuddy Puddy Cave. But Jasper was like, no, in addition to it being challenging and very difficult, the behavior of the visitors was creating unsanitary conditions that also posed a serious problem.

Is he saying, like, people were like using the bathrooms to have their problems? Probably, I think it's like, yeah. And he said, if there's a death, the state officials would probably be on the ball to close it immediately. And he was correct. Wow.

Now, it turned out that John Jasper was not exaggerating at all, because the back-to-back emergency rescues of Brock Clark and David Crowouther's in the fall of 2004 had prompted a number of complaints to state officials. Many people started demanding that Nuddy Pettikey be close to the public. School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration Representative Gary Bagley said, quote, closing the cave is one of the options. But obviously, the trust would have preferred that another organization

just take over management of it and actually keep the cave open. But as far as baggly and the trust were concerned, Nuddy-Puddy Cave had become more of a liability than it was really worth. That's what it sounds like to me. And they were like, we don't necessarily want it to be closed off to everybody or just like sealed off. They kind of wanted to direct their resources into something that was a little more profitable unless dangerous. Like there was a lot of liability involved with this

and they were like, I don't know if this is really something we're really prepared to handle. Like I don't think we have the resources. Like in simple terms, the school and institutional trust lands administration did not possess the resources or expertise to manage nutty putty as a destination for visitors. It doesn't sound like it. Like I think the initial look at it was something different and now it's become this big problem.

A massive destination. So they were thinking this is going to be better off in the hands of a more appropriate organization for what it has become. Because honestly by 2005, Nuddy Puddy was receiving more than 4,000 visitors per year. Whoa. Which is nearly twice that of any other cave in Utah. That's insane. But Jester estimated only about 1% of them were properly equipped to enter the cave. 1% of visitors were properly equipped to enter the cave. One percent of visitors were properly equipped to enter the cave. One percent of a thousand. So the issue of public safety came up again a few minutes later.

I mean a few months later. So this time it was under unfortunate circumstances. Oh no. Now this is really awful. So on August 17, 2005, Jennifer Gailbrace and a group of five friends went out to explore the caves under Y Mountain and Provo, Utah. According to Jennifer's father, Chris, she had experienced exploring caves. But she had never been in this cave system as far as he knew. He said, I think it was just an adventure that went bad. Oh, no. Now across Western Utah, there's a lot of old mine shafts that have been out of use for

nearly a century. And they are literally all over the landscape. And they can look very much like cave systems. Oh, but they're like super dangerous. They pose a far greater risk than natural cave systems because of their instability. Especially their holes. A lot. That evening, Jennifer and her friends decided to enter a cave known as the cave of death,

which is in fact not a cave at all. It's an abandoned mine entrance that dead ends a few hundred feet in. Of the five friends, only one Joseph Ferguson was like, no, I don't want to go in a mineshaft and you wait it outside. Okay. The other four went in the several hundred feet in and lowered themselves into a deeper shaft to explore the interior. So they went several hundred feet into the cave and then like lowered themselves further

in. Now when nobody had returned for several hours, Joseph began to panic. And he's just sitting outside this and my entrance alone. Yeah. And he called police who put together a rescue team to find the four friends in the shaft.

When they found Jennifer and her friends in the lower part of the mine, they were all dead. The exact cause of death is unknown. What? According to rescuers, quote, the guide rope was reportedly intact. Cold water, lack of air, or hang up might have caused their deaths, although they couldn't be certain about what happened. So officials theorized that maybe after lowering themselves into the shaft, Jennifer and her friends became trapped in a very small space that regularly flooded with water. And so they panicked and were unable to reverse their course.

And it's believed that they couldn't find their way out and probably suffocated due to limited oxygen in the pool. Oh my God, what a fucking way to go. That's so horrific. I know, I feel like we keep saying horrific, but that's the only way you can describe it. Truly. Wow. Yeah. Within hours of retrieving the four bodies, authorities had put a no-tress passing sign outside of the entrance to the mine and began pouring cement to close off the entrance. Wow.

While sealing up the entrance would likely prevent any future deaths like this, it wasn't always a permanent solution. Provo mayor Lewis Billings told reporters there are minds all over these mountains. The problem with sealing up caves or mines is that it often makes the curious explorer even more so. A prime example is the Spanish moss cave,

which has a steel door. People have been so curious that they dug underneath it to get in. It's like I'm sorry but if you have to dig underneath it's still no. It's like when we open up like a sarcophagus that's been like under this wild amount of you know earth for hundreds and hundreds and thousands of years. And we're like, wow, let's open this up.

It's like, okay, I get it. I'm a, I'm for science. Absolutely. Exploration. I'm for, you know, looking into history, all that. There's a line. There's certain things that I'm like, there's a line. I don't know.

I don't know. Some things just don't give, they don't pass the vibe check and it closed off mine or closed-off cave system. It's not pass in the vibe check, leave it alone. Something bad happened and they're just leave it alone. It's like earlier this year when they found that worm that was like prehistoric. Yes.

They were like, let's thaw it and figure out. Is it that? Is it that every disaster movie ever? No. Stop doing it. But of course we're getting science for it. Yeah, no science. I'm still going to sealed off places like this.

No, it's dangerous. Yeah, and I don't know about worms. And I don't know about worms. Just for the record. I mean, read the truth. Morbid tells the kind of spooky and macarve stories that send chills down your spine. But few stories are creepier than the one at the center of my new podcast, Ghost Story. Ghost Sound Reel.

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podcasts. Well, no one had died in nutty, putty cave since the early 1990s. It was clear to officials that the popular cave system posed very serious risks to specifically inexperienced and unprepared spelunkers and cavers. Yeah, because by the way, 1% of 4,040, yeah, it took me a minute to figure that out. Those are the, that's the amount of people that are prepared to go in. He said 40 people probably out of those 4,000

knew what they were doing. And that was like a probably, yes. Like, yeah. Wow. Yeah. Not great. Real bad. Not good at all.

Uh, and that's the thing. It's like the, if you're experienced and you're ready to take on the risk and you know what you're getting into, and you go with the proper equipment, that's on you, man. Like you accept the risks, you know that, like, and hopefully you're safe and all that good stuff.

Totally. But if you're inexperienced, this just isn't the level that you should just dive right into, I feel. Like this is just really, really scary and challenging. But in May 2006, the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, SITLA, installed a large gate to discourage visitors in six the school and institutional trust lands administration, SITLA. Sitla.

Install the large gate to discourage visitors from going in until, and they basically were doing that as like a hold pattern like until we figure out what's gonna happen to the future of this cave. Like, go and I'll stay out. So SITLA spokesman David Herbertson told the press, this is a moral thing that we don't want to live with. The cave needs more management or to be closed.

And according to Herbertson, the four deaths in the mine at Y Mountain, quote, re-emphasize the need for people to take precautions when they're in caves. And basically, the SITLA did not possess the resources to provide visitors a safe, splunking, caving experience. That seems to be the theme of all of this. And what he said was, I don't think liability,

and I do appreciate this part of what they said. I really think they meant this. He said, I don't think liability is an issue at all. And he said, but I do believe that we don't want to tell somebody that their son or daughter died in our cave. Yeah, I mean, of course. And I think that's pretty decent of them that their main focus was not being responsible

for more deaths, not liability, not fully like profitability and all that. They were like, no, what we really don't want is to have to go to somebody's parents and say your kid is dead in our cave. Yeah, who wants to do that? Now, while most people understood this idea to seal off unsafe minds, People were down for that.

They were like, minds like, yeah, totally. Closing off access to minds, like access to caves, they were mad about, was a controversial matter. Okay. People stand on two very different sides. Tipinago's Grotto Vice Chairman Chuck Acklin said, there are more caves in Utah than we know about right now. Sealing off all the minds makes sense.

But the caves, there's a lot of science in those caves that we don't understand yet. And I do understand that argument. And you wish there was some type of way to stop inexperienced people from going into those caves, but allow experienced people. But it's like, how do you discern? And they tried many, many times.

And people, unfortunately, we are a species that is not great at listening, and not great at understanding boundaries. And so you'll always have people that will bend the rules and put themselves in others at risk. And unfortunately, you can't stop them. And that is not what happened in the case. It's really not what happened in any of these cases, especially ones in the Nuddy Pitty

Cave and the one of John Jones. They were spunking. They were, you know, and they were experienced. They knew what they were doing, and it was just freak accidents. And it was getting turned around. It was that kind of thing. And that's the thing. Look, look what even it's experienced to. Even was that kind of thing. And that's the thing. Look, look what even it has to do. It's very interesting.

So that's the thing. It's like, you don't know what to do. Because it's like, you do need cave systems for like scientific research. There's so much we don't know. And it's like, you don't want to seal that off. It just goes, well, I guess we'll never know. But like, how do you make it safe?

It's just so hard. There's really no right answer, I don't think, unfortunately. But so again, there's a lot of science in those caves that we don't understand yet. And as a compromise, the SITLA contracted with Tampinago's grotto to take over management of nutty-puddy cave. And also some other cave systems on the property. And anyone interested in venturing inside, they now said that they needed to contact the grotto, submit an application for entry into the cave, essentially acknowledging the risks and proving that they were experienced

enough to manage the expedition. I was waiting for that like some kind of release signals. And Aklin said, we've attempted to manage the risk, but we're unable to manage the gamblers. And that is no true statement has been said. Yeah. All we can do is manage the risk. People are going to gamble. And that's just the way it is.

And he said he was referring gamblers as people who continued to enter the cave without the permissions and waivers required. Oh, okay. And honestly, at this point, I don't know what else they could do. So on the afternoon of November 24th, 2009, 26-year-old John Jones,

and a large group of friends and family arrived at the entrance of Nuddy Puddy Cave. They were super excited to explore this notorious cave. John and his brother Josh and his family had grown up in Stansbury Park, Utah. So they had spent a lot of time together as kids exploring the Utah caves and cool places all over the state.

Utah's way cooler than I knew. Oh, Utah's super cool. I didn't know a lot about Utah to be honest. There's so much history in Utah because it's like one of the oldest places. It's like fascinating when you're like, go Utah. Utah, you know? Salt Lake City, how's that? Utah. I have one of the oldest places. It's like fascinating when you're like, go Utah. Utah, you know?

Salt Lake City, how's that? Utah. I have one of the best franchises. There you go. But John had moved to Virginia for med school two years earlier. And so he hadn't been in a cave in years. And especially not one is challenging as nutty buddy.

He had also married his longtime girlfriend, Emily. And together, they had a one-year-old daughter together. And Emily was also pregnant and due with a baby that June. Oh, God. So his trip back to Utah for Thanksgiving was kind of an opportunity for John to reconnect with his group of friends and hang out with his family and all doing the thing that they had once

loved to do together, like adventure. That's really sad that it was like a reunion. Yeah. And so the group reached the entrance to the cave around 8 p.m. and spent some time exploring the big slide before John, Josh, and two other members of the group separated from the others to go to search more challenging sections of the cave.

So they didn't have a guide and they didn't have a proper map. So they only had a vague idea of where the birth canal was located. So they went in the general direction, they believed it to be in. And after wiggling through very difficult and tight alcoves and passages, they thought they had found what they were looking for. They only had a light like a headlamp on, and it was a light from his father's decades old headlamp to show the way, so it wasn't even like a brand new one. Right. John entered into a waist-high hole headfirst.

Oh. He inched his way into the crevasse with his hips, stomach, and hands. And the natural process of erosion in this whole had created what basically was a tight corkscrew of rock that few, if anyone had successfully navigated. So they don't even know if anyone has gone where John Jones ended up being. Oh, no. And he was, John Jones was six feet tall and nearly 200 pounds. So he's like a built guy.

Yeah. So he found himself in trouble pretty quick. Oh, no. When he realized the passage was too small and tight for his frame, he looked for but couldn't find a space large enough to turn around. So he kept pushing forward in the hope that he would widen at one point, because he was thinking he was going to end up at the end of the birth canal. Right.

And it would open up. Of course. But the problem was they weren't in the birth canal. They were in a very poorly mapped section of the cave known as Bob's push, which is only 18 inches wide and 10 inches high. 18 inches wide. 18 inches wide. Oh yeah. So he's looking into a fissure that drops straight down

and it looked like it widened at the bottom. So he kept pushing forward, thinking he'd found a place to turn around. I'm surprised he could even push forward at that point. Oh, it's like slowly and gradually you push forward too. It's like a lot of effort, a lot of strength, a lot of energy. Now, it's difficult to know exactly what happened, but rescuers believe John sucked in his chest to investigate the fissure. So he slid his torso over a lip of rock and down into a 10 inch wide side for the crevice.

So he went from 18 inches to 10 inches. But when his chest expanded again, he was wedged. Oh my God. Now he's in an upside down position with all of his weight pushing downward and all of the blood rushing to his head. Yup, and the more he struggled to free himself, the deeper he slid into the increasingly narrow fissure,

this is awful, until he became wedged into a section that was only about eight and a half inches wide. How is that even possible? I have no idea. Like I can't even wrap my head around that. How does the body fit in a section that is that wide? Or that is only that wide? It's like when you literally tuck everything in, basically,

which is even more suffocating because you're like, you have no room to expand your chest to breathe. To make matters worse, as he was sliding deeper into the fissure, one of his arms had been pinned under his body, and the other was forced backwards, caught on an outcropping rock. On his way in, he had used momentum to wriggle and slide his way forward, but without the use of his arms or hands, he couldn't push himself backwards. So he can't use his arms or his hands at this point. Now according to the Salt Lake Tribune,

when Josh learned his brother was stuck, he thought it was the beginning of another family adventure story. Because when they were younger, their father had gotten stuck on a similar caving trip. And the story had been this favorite to tell at family gatherings ever since, about like the amazing rescue and like he got out and wow like what a crazy story.

That makes this even sad. Yeah. So Josh was like, oh this is just going to be one of those like, like I'm so sorry he's uncomfortable like that sucks but like we're going to get him out and then we're all going to laugh about this. Oh, but in the fact that he had that much hope. Oh, they all had so much hope. Oh, they're so heartbreaking. But as Josh slowly crawled into the cave to reach his brother, the increasingly tight space made him anxious. He couldn't. And by the time he reached John, he was like,

oh shit. Like this is not right. And Josh said seeing his feet and seeing how swallowed he was by the rock, that's when I knew it was serious. Swallowed by the rock. That's when I knew it was serious. Swallowed by the rock. Now wrapping his feet around John's calves, Josh tried to extract his brother and ended up being able to move him a few inches.

Well, not probably gave them even more hope. Exactly. But with nothing to hold on to and gravity pulling all of them down, John slipped back into his original position. Oh, no. Josh was like, I have nothing I can do. And he started to panic. So he crawled out of the fissure and made his way to the surface to call for help. Well, one of their friends stayed below with John.

Okay, good. Now, confident that help was on the way, Josh made his way back down to where John was stuck and tried to keep his spirits up. What a good brother. While they waited for a rescue, they made small talk. They sang Mormon hymns. They were Mormon. And they prayed together to pass the time. And after about an hour, they started to hear the sound of rescuers approaching. But at that point, Josh didn't even want

to leave him. Yeah. He was like, I really don't want to leave him by himself down here. He later said to a reporter, I didn't want to leave him. His life was in that cave, in that little crack. Oh, this is got wrenching. Isn't it? Like, there's, I can't think of something more horrifying, truly.

Oh, I don't even have the words. Now the rescue attempt that happens here is long, arduous, and equally is terrifying. Yeah. So the three-person team of rescuers arrived on scene a little before midnight. And within 30 or so minutes, they'd reach the opening of the fissure where John had become stuck. And as the smallest member of the group at five foot three inches, Susie Motola volunteered to venture into the Kravass where John was, which like heroes.

Yes, seriously. After 20 minutes of slow progress, Susie's headlamp finally found the back of John. And she could see that he was very trapped. And what he said when she got there, she heard, he heard her coming. And he said, she said, like, I'm Susie. I'm here to help you. And he said, hi Susie. Thanks for coming. But I really, really want to get out. Oh my God. I'm going to cry at that. That's the thing. And her response, because they were optimistic they could get him out was, oh, no worries, John. You're going to be out of here.

Look at his split. Which I'm glad she said that. Of course. Because it's given like a little something to hold on to. It's just so, so awful that he never, like, and you can tell when like, just that quote, I really, really want to get out. You're just like panic. I really, really want to get out. Like, I can just, like, I feel that.

And you know that, like, you feel like a little kid being like, I just really, really want to get out of here. Please. Please. And, you know, that feeling when, like, you've done something and you regret it so much and you're like, if I can't rewind, just rewind, like, please. So true. That's exactly.

It's like, oh. So Susie tied a rope around John Zankles and very slowly worked her way back out to deliver the other end of the rope to the team at the entrance of the cave. But apparently the friction caused by the rope rubbing against the various pieces of rock only created more tension

and it made their efforts to pull him out much harder. Oh, no. So while the other rescuers worked to come up with a new plan, Susie decided she was gonna try to keep John calm and prevent him from panicking. And at this point, he can't even see these people, right? He's just there looking into like a darkness. Just darkness.

And so she tried to move him so that he could be more comfortable, but he was too heavy, and she couldn't lift any part of his body because she was so wedged. Right. So she cut off the legs of his jeans to allow a little more space. So maybe it would rub. But it didn't really do a lot to improve his comfort. And then she started trickling water from her water bottle down his arm, hoping that some of it could trickle into his mouth. She's so sweet.

Then when she'd run out of ideas, she started awfully humming, a Mormon hymn to him. Oh. Now, as they talked, and now she tried to keep him calm, she noticed John's voice was becoming, quote, more nasal and his breathing labored. She could hear that his lungs were filled with fluid. Oh my God.

Susie knew John was in big trouble here, but at the time she didn't know how big of trouble he was in. Back at the cave entrance, trauma doctor, Doug Murdock had arrived to assist in the rescue, which, like, they immediately got a trauma doctor. That's great. And he filled in everyone with how bad this situation really was. He said, quote, being upside down,

your body has to pump the blood out of the brain. Your body isn't set up to do that. The entire system starts to fail. So do you basically have, like, an aneurysm at some point? Everything just starts failing. Oh my God. Now, being in that position, his circulation was slowing down, so it was allowing for fluids to pool in the brain and lungs,

capillaries to leak, and toxins to build in his blood. And if they weren't able to get to him soon and get him out of that position, the toxins that were leaking into his blood would leak into his heart and other vital organs. And although he couldn't say with exact certainty how long he had, Dr. Murdoch estimated John had about eight to ten hours in there before he died. Oh my God.

Now while Susie worked to keep John calm, the team outside the cave finally had come up with a full, like, a total plan, this whole pulley system, threading the rope through anchors, pounded into the wall of the cave. OK. And they did this so that it wouldn't rub against the wall

and create that friction again. Right. And the problem, however, was that the size of the opening where John was stuck was so tight that each piece of equipment had to be sent down one at a time in a process that took nearly one hour for each piece. And he only has eight to ten hours to even live at this point. Meanwhile, there's still brainstorming other possible strategies. These people must, like, but this is unprecedented. They have to be even so stressed. And for them to be just like

the amount of times they try here, and the lengths they go to and the danger they put themselves in and the things they come up with, like they tried so hard. When they tried so hard. You must be terrified as a rescue we're going in there because what if you take one wrong turn?

It's literally a split second decision of which way to go. And when you get down there, I'm sure Susie and everybody else who ended up like this guy, Ryan, this guy Dave, who goes down there to talk to John. His brother John. You hear this guy talking to you and being like, I really, really just want to get out of here.

Like, thank you for helping me. Like, please help me. Everything and you must want to be like, all I want to do is get this guy out. Like, I'll do whatever I can. Like, you just want to lift this guy out to his family and be like, he's okay. You know, like that's all they ever want out of a rescue and they're not getting it.

And you have like the weight of the world on your shoulders. It's, oh, it just must be such the physical load. I can't even fathom like my body won the mental. I won't even begin to imagine that physical load that it takes, but the emotional and mental load is unthinkable and real. Now, they ordered air drills and chisels, but the equipment was too large to get down into the crevasse. They considered explosives to create a second opening

where they could pull him forward. Wow. But they quickly realized that wasn't gonna work. That was gonna cause more dangerous problems, yeah. They even ordered six gallons of vegetable oil, hoping that they could slide him out and they tried, but it was impossible. So now he's covered in oil.

It's, they tried everything. Oh. By 4pm, the next day, rescuers had managed to pull John back nearly a dozen feet in the direction of the opening. And we're beginning to feel optimistic. They're getting closer, but they would sue, and they thought they were going to get him out. They were like, okay, we're moving him. This is working.

Yeah. After, you know, they managed to free 16-year-old Brock Clark from a similar spot just six years earlier. So they were like, we can do this. I think we can do this. But the problem was John was stuck way further down than Clark was. And Clark, I think, was in like a different spot in the Kravass. And he was also a 16 year old teenager. Right. He's built differently. And it's like this is a grown man. Like, that's,

it's, yeah. Now, despite the optimism of those working on the surface, things inside the cave were not as optimistic. John's heart had been working over time to circulate the blood for nearly 24 hours. Oh my God, I didn't realize he was stuck for that long. And at this point, his heart's working so hard, and his body is going through such an excruciating or mount of stress that each pull on the rope

caused his legs to knock into the wall of the cave, body is going through such an excruciating amount of stress that each pull on the rope caused his legs to knock into the wall of the cave, and he would have an excruciating wave of pain go through his whole body. And then at this point, it gets even worse because they had reached a point in the tunnel where the tight angles meant they couldn't bend John's body backward without likely breaking his legs. Oh, my God. And at this point, they said the physical trauma of that is something that his body at this point is so weak, he will go into shock and die. Like, he will never be able to survive

the trauma. If he was, if he had just gone down into there and broke and they broke his legs, I'd be different. Horrible trauma. I can't even fathom. But your body isn't in the state where it will necessarily kill you. She is so weakened right now that there's no way he would have survived that. Oh my God. I don't even know what to say. So as they're realizing all of this, they realize that the anchors holding the rope on the police system were starting to give way.

So after hours underground, Susie Motola had crawled out because she needed a break at that point. I mean, it's been 24 hours. And she was replaced by rescue worker Ryan Scherz. Like Susie, Scherz was an expert splunker. He was very familiar with the caves in Western Utah. And he knew what the situation was very familiar with the caves in Western Utah and he knew what the situation was. He understood the dangers here. And when he actually made his way down into Nuddy Putty and reached John, he said he had to fight back tears knowing how little chance this man had towards. He's like, I just knew.

When shirts reach John, John said to him, help me get out, I don't want to be on my head. And he was talking about the new position he had found himself in, because he had been pulled out of that other crevasse. And I guess where he was now, he was kind of on his head. Oh, no. Because the police were breaking,

so they had to leave him in that position. And then he said, why did you guys put me here? Oh, I'm gonna, I'm like, actually gonna bring you home. Honestly, like, honestly, this is a devastating story. This is just torture. He also just seems like a really nice guy. It's just like everything he's saying is like, like he was panicking, but he was also just like,

he seemed just like a kind guy who was going after an adventure with his family. And had done this before. So it's not like he was like, oh, I've never been in a cave before. I'm gonna do this. And just knowing that his dad had been stuck before and he got out of it and the hope that that gave them.

You know, he was sitting there being like my dad went through this. My dad came out like we can do this. And his whole family was probably thinking that and his wife is pregnant. And his wife, and he has a one year old with him and is pregnant with his funny. And his whole family was probably thinking that and his wife is pregnant. His wife, his wife, Emily has a one year old with him and is pregnant with his child due in June.

And was it just Thanksgiving? How didn't you say that earlier? It was, yeah, it was Thanksgiving like this. It was their Thanksgiving trip. It's just awful. This is devastating. It was poor, poor family. So Ryan Shirt sat with John and tried to keep him calm, keep his spirits up, all while the rest of the rescue team

was rebuilding the police system now. Wow. And then they're gonna have to put all of the... I'll leave it back down. And all of the equipment down. Yeah. It takes an hour out of time for each piece. Oh my God.

And Ryan Shirt said he knew there was really not a lot. He could physically do for John, but he was like, I just wanted him to know that he wasn't alone. Like he wasn't stuck in a crack alone there. So he helped him get water through a long straw attached to his water bottle. He said he rubbed John's leg, hoping that human touch would help calm him down. Oh my God. And then he said, as a devout Mormon, he shared stories with John about his time as a missionary

in Ecuador because it was something they could bond over and it was something that comforted him. And for the most part, I guess Ryan, like Ryan really was a calming presence, but every now and then he said the situation just overwhelmed John and he would become panicked and start thrashing his legs and screaming. Because he's probably just trying. He just wants to get out. Like, desperate. You must just trying to just wants to get out like

desk you must just want to bus you want to like Hulk through that rock and just get the fuck out yeah now by late afternoon the rescue team had finished installing the new pulley system and we're ready to fry once again to extract john with several hard poles that's what they're hoping to do now they were like we just got to try and they knew this would cause a lot of serious physical trauma because they were like, at this point, we can't slowly try to get him out. We've got to, like, wrench him out of there if we want to try to get him.

And Dr. Murdoch and other medical assistants were on scene and we're totally ready to administer immediate medical assistance to keep him from slipping to shock and dying. Once he got out. As eight people pulled at the entrance of the cave, Ryan Schertz tried to guide John's body while John did his best to push with his hands. Now, after about 20 minutes, Schertz yelled for the team to stop and lower John a little in order to give him a break. And John said, my legs are killing me. And then shirts felt, Ryan shirts, the rescuer, felt an explosion of pain and screamed and then blacked out. With the rescuer, yes. Under the strain of trying to pull John out,

an anchor had come loose from the cave wall, sending a metal piece. I think it's a carabiner. Rocketing into Ryan shirts his face, immediately breaking his jaw and nearly severing his tongue. What the fuck? Like what the fuck? I don't, like you couldn't write that. Like that is... You would write that and somebody would be like, Jesus Christ. Like you did way too much. That's a lot.

How is this kind of devastation happening in this small place? Like I'm... This place feels fucking cursed, dude. And the accident caused the rope to snap and it sent John sliding back into the fissure. No, where he landed on his head. No. Susie, Matola said it felt like a slap in the face. So he just got put back into the exact same position that they had spent over 24 hours getting him out of now.z, who had just got hit in the face

with a metal piece of blacked out, broke his jaw and nearly severed his tongue, tried his best to explain to John that he had to leave to get medical attention. And he was eventually replaced by another rescuer who was his father, Dave Schertz. Oh, wow. John apparently told Dave Scherz. Oh wow. John apparently told Dave Scherz,

I'm going to die in here. Oh my God. Just the fact that he knew that. He knew. A certain point. And Dave Scherz tried to reassure John that they were going to get him out, but by that point,

it was becoming obvious that they really don't have a lot of options here. Like they've tried everything. Of course. The team worked to fix the pulley system, but the tools were too large to get down into the Corvasse and Dave couldn't get into where John had landed to even tie a new rope.

So after a few hours, Dave Schertz was exhausted and radioed to let them know that they'd need someone to replace him. And when he reached the rest of the group, Schertz said he's dying right now. He has a heartbeat, but he said, difficulty breathing before I got there. You can't get someone down there before he dies. Oh my God. So branding Koalas volunteered to go down and to be by John's side, taking and he took a telecom radio with him so that John could speak to his wife, Emily.

No. But by the time Koalus reached the fizz, John had lost consciousness. So he never even got to see the fight again. A few minutes before midnight, a paramedic from the rescue team crawled down into Nuddy Puddy Cave and pronounced John Jones dead at 11.56 p.m. on November 25th, 2009. Oh, we know. No one should die like that. No. No one should die like that.

Not even like the worst person on the planet should die like that. Like, and this guy, like, how do you, a one- one year old and a baby on the way. I feel for his family and his wife so hard. It's there aren't even words. And then when you hear his wife when she talks about it, her outlook on the entire thing, I'm like, man, like you're made of different stuff than I am. Like she's just like the strongest lady. She would have to be. And she just, like, she just looks at it a different way.

I have like that lump in my throat right now. It's awful. It's awful. Because there were so many moments where you were like, he's gonna get out. They were so close. And he probably thought I'm gonna get out and then to have him fall right back down.

It's like that fall must have just been like talk about devastation. And just the fact that like somebody was on their way down there so he could talk to his wife. What do you mean he's talking to his wife? And of course, I'm sure that's probably the only fucking person on planet earth he wanted to talk to. Yeah, exactly. And I'm sure the rescuers are sitting there being like second guessing everything and, you know,

they have all this guilt. And then they've tried everything they could and put everything at risk for it to get him out of there. That's the thing then you have to go home that night and know, and of course know that you tried your hardest, but you're only human. And he's such a handsome guy. Like, I know, let me see.

And his Emily's so beautiful, like they're like aom guy. Like, I know, let me see. And his Emily's so beautiful. Like they're like a beautiful couple. Like beautiful, so sad. It's horrifying. Like whole life ahead. And like, oh my god. Yeah. Like whole life ahead.

And he was only 26 years old, by the way. Wow. He, like you look quite literally like you're a whole like that every year. You have your whole life that every year. That's just the saddest thing that I've ever heard in my life. It's horrific, truly, truly, truly horrific.

Now, obviously, John's death was unbelievably devastating for his family and the team of rescuers and anyone who had really just put every bit of hope on the line that he was going to come out battered, but still alive. Right? John's brother Spencer Jones told reporters the next day, we all were very optimistic and hopeful, but it became increasingly clear last night after he got restock that there wasn't, that there weren't very many options left. We thought he was in the clear, and then when we got the news that he had slipped again, that's when we started to get scared. Because they get this news that they got him up a part of the way, like we're close, get in there, and then to get the call that he slid. That he slid right back to where he, that I, my brain won't even

compute that kind of disappointment. No. Truly. You would, like, you can't ever understand that does appointment unless you've gone through it. Like, I can't imagine. Oh, it's incredible. It's incredibly horrifying. This is a mind bogboggling case.

Now, before leaving the site, Lieutenant Tom Hodgson from the Utah County Sheriff's Office promised that they would retrieve John's body the next day. But he learned that that was a promise he was not going to be able to keep. Years later, he told a reporter to make that phone call on Thanksgiving morning to a family that is hopeful

You will be bringing their son out and they'll get some closure. It wasn't an easy phone call to make I got to they didn't even get to have Thanksgiving together before this happened. No And they found out that they weren't getting at his body Because they couldn't The family was understandably horrified. Of course. But they did eventually understand, which I can't imagine. Like you just said, made a difference. Yeah.

Like these incredible people. Like you know, you have to eventually be like, okay, I have to look at this. There's like, you can do what can we do? But like, damn, they had struggled for hours to move John just a few feet while he was alive and able to use his hands to like help push a little bit. So the effort required to move him now that he was no longer alive and not able to push himself. It just wasn't going to happen.

To even attempt the retrieval would require putting a lot of members of the rescue team at risk, which was something neither the family, like John's family, like don't do that. Or the sheriff's department wanted, they all agreed like there's no reason to put other people at risk here. So there an inability to retrieve John's body meant that that was Nuddy Puddy Cave was his final resting place. His body remains there in the position it was in. That's horrific. And John Jones was the first death in nutty putty cave.

But given the previous incidents in the cave and the obvious risk, for risk at pose for amateur and obviously professional cavers and splunkers, state officials voted unanimously to seal the cave with concrete immediately. Well, and especially now that they can't get him on it, nobody should ever go back in there. Lieutenant Hodgson told the press,

we've suffered a tragedy in this cave that we hoped to prevent from happening again. Though they were absolutely grief-stricken and heartbroken, the family agreed and told the press, we feel like it would be John's will to protect the safety of future cavers. And they said in time they started to actually appreciate that John's remains were left in a place that he loved his entire life. Okay, his wife Emily told her reporter in 2018,

John loves the outdoors, he loves Utah, he loves wide open space. It's so fitting that it's his spot now. Wow. And that was in 2018. And I also love that she refers to him as like, John loves this. He loves that, like, present tense. He's still around, like, somewhere. Yeah. Now, a few days later, construction crews sealed Nuddy-Puddy Cave with concrete plugs at two points. One at the entrance leading to the fissure

where John became stuck, so inside the cave. Yeah. The entrance of that fissure. And a second concrete plug was put at the main entrance at the top of Blowhole Hill. The plugs make the cave inaccessible, but they were careful to create a plug that was not going to interfere with

the ecosystem. Oh, that's good. And actually could be removed if they needed to, but there would be a lot of effort involved in a lot of cost involved to remove it, but they could. But it's not impossible. So as of now, there are no plans to reopen nutty putty cave. I hope the air remains closed. But again, they made a plug there that seals it off,

but does not interfere with the ecosystem, which is nice. But that is the nutty putty cave incident and the death of John Edward Jones. That's one of the most devastating cases that we've ever covered. I agree. I definitely agree. I dare not even words for where my brain is at right now.

It's really, really, really horrifying. And it's just so tragic. That's the thing. It's just so tragic and unthinkable, like truly unthinkable. And just put yourself in the shoes of anyone involved in this case, like to put yourself in the shoes of John being stuck there for hours and hours and hours and trying your best to get out of there, the rescuers, his family,

his wife, like, I can't even fathom. Truly, how do you go on? Can't even fathom. And I say, I know I'm saying that a lot, but I don't know what else to say. In this case, my brain won't even compute it. Oh, and you're like, you're so right. You just look like the nicest guy.

Yeah, just like a sweet guy. Oh, that was a really, really sad one. Yeah. And I hope that anybody that goes for lunging is super, super, super, super careful and stays as safe as they possibly can. Yes, please do. Wow.

So we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird. I'm not doing it not so weird for the self. ʃələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlələlə Hey, Prime Members! You can listen to Morvid, Early, and Add Free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen Add Free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery Plus and Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.