Overview

This site contains aggregated information on the Nutty Putty Cave tragedy of 2009, when caver John Jones passed away after being trapped in an inverted position for 28 hours. Although there are many resources for this event, I feel the information is too scattered and difficult to locate. Over the years sources of information have already been lost.

Additionally, disinformation and misinformation appears to be prevalent in regards to this incident, which is very unfortunate for those looking to understand what actually happened. This site attempts to provide various points of view on many elements of the incident, rescue, and aftermath of Nutty Putty Cave.

As a final note, there is of course no guarantee of authenticity or accuracy regarding quoted individuals. I generally selected those who I felt had either informative points of view, or interesting information to share. It is of course, up to the reader to decide who and what they believe.

"There were some things that happened down there that will never be published.”

— Dale Green, Nutty Putty Discoverer

"Some situations are simply not survivable, no matter who the rescuers are or how they are trained or what equipment they have."

— Bill Putnam, NSS Chairman

Trapped!

• Where exactly did John Jones get stuck?
• Was the passage on the survey map?
• Were there any indications not to traverse the passage?
• Have other people been stuck in the passage?
• Why did Jones traverse the passage?
• How did Jones get stuck in the passage?
• How did other cavers describe the area and experience?

The Rescue Begins

• How did Jones' caving party respond to his situation?
• What was the initial assessment of rescue personnel?
• What early attempts were made to free Jones?
• Who was called in for the ongoing rescue effort?

The Rescue Intensifies

• How was the pulley system configured and executed?
• What made the rescue so difficult?
• What was the condition of Jones' health?
• Why was information on the rescue so limited?

Tragedy Strikes

• Was Jones ever actually free from the crevice?
• What exactly went wrong with the final rescue effort?
• What was the cause of Jones' death?
• Why was the body never recovered?

Aftermath

• Was the rescue of Jones even possible in the first place?
• What was the Jones family's stance on the cave?
• What happened to the Nutty Putty Cave?
• What did cavers think about the closure?

Trapped!

Where exactly did John Jones get stuck?

"They [Jones and his brother] proceeded to a tight, nasty, passage beyond the well-known Bob’s Push. The passage is mostly belly-crawl size and undulates up and down before taking a decisive turn to the left and downward. The remainder of the passage to its dead-end is very tight and slopes downward at about a 60 degree angle."

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Incident Report)

"The spot he is stuck is known as Ed's Push and is described to be 125 feet below and about 700 feet away from the cave's entrance, requiring someone to meander through numerous confined spaces. The actual area in which he is trapped is described as being 18 inches wide and just 8 to 10 inches tall."

— Sam Penrod and Marc Giauque (KSL News)

"The Birth Canal is the most popular portion of the cave. Now where John went, was about 8-10 feet further down the cave, and on the opposite wall. But there was a well marked hole, known as the Birth Canal, everyone wanted to try to make it up through. It was an uphill kind of climb." 

— Michael Leavitt, Cave Access Manager, Nutty Putty (RadioWest Interview)

"After reading the articles and hearing the news stories, much of the information regarding his location were not reported accurately. John was exploring a passage that is not on the map and you have to go out of your way to locate it and try to crawl. Very few people have been up there and he was crawling along head first." 

— Michael Leavitt, Cave Access Manager, Nutty Putty (Nutty Putty Site)

"I am told that the crawl in which John was trapped does not start out going steeply down, but rather goes, in, up, and around a bend before turning downward at a steep angle. Anyone with an affinity for crawls might have gone into and pushed such a passage, hoping to find a new part of the cave, or larger passage beyond. There are apparently several additional constrictions within the body-tight passage, however."

— Bill Putnam, NSS Chairman (Cavechat Forum)

"The group split into two, with several children and some adults staying behind in the less treacherous area while some others went looking for "an adventure" in the more advanced parts of the cave."

— Josh Jones, Brother of Jones (Salt Lake Tribune)

"John got stuck in the single worst spot in the cave, head down a 70 degree slope, and unable to get himself out. Add to that the tight squeeze to get into that spot at the end of 50′ of crawling through a tube narrow enough to induce a panic attack in many ordinary people."

— Shaun Roundy, Cave Rescue (Nutty Putty Site)

"This particular area is very, very difficult ... where the cave peters out to virtually nothing," 

— Lt. John Valentine, Cave Rescue (WJW News)

"Jones didn't get stuck in the 'birth canal', he got stuck in a small offshoot down near 'Ed's push'. This offshoot is located in one small corner of the cave, and is very out of the way." 

— Jessica J (KSL News Comments)

"Was there a back entrance to the tunnel? No, it ended shortly after the crack where John was stuck."

— Lindsay Whitehurst (Salt Lake Tribune)

Was the passage on the survey map?

Both maps combined with the general location. 

"It is more clearly shown on the 1965 map than the newer 2004 offering. But even still, the 1965 map rendering is just a best guess because that passage was so small that it was never fully explored."

— Michael Leavitt, Cave Access Manager, Nutty Putty (Nutty Putty Site)

"Through the years it [Nutty Putty] had been mapped a couple of different times, so the passages were documented- and there were a few passages, such as the one that John Jones was in, that were never put onto the map. The hole was put into the map, but the passageway wasn't put on, because we didn't want to promote anybody going up there!"

— Michael Leavitt, Cave Access Manager (RadioWest Interview)

Were there any indications not to traverse the passage?

"In that cave, if people explored it, there was black limestone- worn paths everywhere. If it wasn't explored, it was covered with a dusty dirt. That was a passage that very few people went up, and nobody of his [Jones] size went up- you had to be smaller than that. The person that did know the passage well, Brandon Kowallis... much, much smaller."

— Michael Leavitt, Cave Access Manager (RadioWest Interview)

"This [signs and plaques] was discussed in the past and was rejected because this was a wild cave. Obviously there is good reason to reconsider that decision if times change and recreational caving is ever allowed in the cave again."

— Michael Leavitt, Cave Access Manager (Nutty Putty Site)

Have other people been stuck in the passage?

"In August 2004, Brock Clark got stuck in the same tunnel of Nutty Putty Cave that trapped John Jones five years later. 'I was headfirst, worming my way through these tiny passages because I wanted to see what was in there. I kept going and going, tighter and tighter', he said. 

Clark decided to turn around when he came to the end of a level area, before the tunnel dropped back down. But as he drew his legs beneath him to move them behind his body, he discovered he didn't have enough room. He found himself folded nearly in half, with one leg stuck underneath the other and his torso semi-suspended over the hole. He tried for an hour to free himself, but only wedged himself farther. He started to panic. 

Clark felt his body start to go numb, first his legs, then his arms. Search-and-rescue crews tossed Clark a webbed rope and he managed to wrap it around his body. Rescuers pulled, but it only banged Clark against the walls of the cave. Clark was finally freed with the assistance of a pulley system.

Lactic acid had built up in his muscles after hours of holding his body up. He spent three days in a hospital recovering and suffered nerve damage in his leg and arm." 

— Linedsay Whitehurst (Salt Lake Tribute)

"Jones pushed himself 14 feet past a spot where another spelunker gotten themselves stuck and THAT rescue was a tough one."

— Ralph E. Powers, Caver (Cavechat Forum) 

"We had somebody else who was stuck back in there, in I think 2006... Brock Davis, was stuck in the exact location. Smaller, only 16 years old, young guy."

— Michael Leavitt, Cave Access Manager (RadioWest Interview)

"People have reportedly been stuck at some of these points in the past, well before the point where John was found."

— Bill Putnam, NSS Chairman (Cavechat Forum)

"Two Boy Scouts had become trapped within a week of each other. In one of the cases, rescue crews took 14 hours to free a 16-year-old Scout — who weighed 140 pounds and was 5’7″ tall, making him much smaller than John — using a complex series of pulleys."

— William DeLong (All That's Interesting) 

"Six years ago, when a 16-year old boy got stuck in the same tunnel that trapped John. It took crews 14 hours to free him, and the teen spent three days in a hospital afterward. A pulley system freed the 5-foot-7-inch-tall, 140-pound teen in 2004, but John was bigger, farther down the tunnel, and rescuers could only reach about 6 inches of his legs." 

— Lindsay Whitehurst (Salt Lake Tribune)

Why did Jones traverse the passage? 

"He [Jones] was apparently lost. He thought he was in Bob's Push, but was mistaken. He thought he did know what was at the bottom, but it turns out he was in a small dead-end passage. There are very tight squeezes just to get to where he was. That's the excuse for 'the rescue being too dangerous'. Supposedly there is a risk of rescuers getting similarly stuck just getting to where he is."

— RockMonkey, Cave Rescue Relative (RME4X4 Forum)

"The rest is hard to explain unless I can use my hands, but for simplicity sake: We had a map of the cave and got to a part where we couldn't find where it continued, so we each took a route that looked like it could be the right way. It is this part of the story that I keep recalling over and over in my head, because at this point I asked John if he wanted to explore the spot, which we later would learn is called the 'Ed's Push' area."

— Joey Stocking, Caver with Jones (Personal Blog)

"At some point the decision was made to split the group and 26 year old John and his 23 year old Trip Leader brother decided to explore the passage that is not on the newer surveyed map. The access is tiny and there is no indication that it leads to anywhere. Due to the long closure and little traffic through the cave in the past few years it is now very easy to see well traveled passages. Dust/dirt covers everything that has not received visitors. Traveled passages are indicated by polished black stone. It is like night and day between traveled areas of the cave and untraveled areas of the cave. We will never know why the decision was made to force themselves into the really small untraveled passage other than the sense of adventure.

Since they had never visited the cave before I cannot figure why they went off map. They had not been in the cave long enough to visit all the wonderful parts of the Birth Canal and even Chris's Crawl. I could understand if they had been to the cave so many times that they were bored with the mapped portions of the cave, but it takes a few trips even with the experienced guides to explore all of the wonderful mapped passages in the cave. Why go off map? All of this was new to the group and there was no reason to go off map."

— Michael Leavitt, Cave Access Manager (Open Letter to Cavers)

"John was qualified. I'm sure he went into this passage hoping it was going to open up into one of the larger rooms."

— Michael Leavitt, Cave Access Manager (NBC News)

"Very few people would have made the choice to crawl down that passage head-first, regardless of their level of caving experience. We will never know what was going through John’s mind when he made that decision. He eventually saw his error, but it was too late. While being stuck underground is always a serious situation, cavers need to be extremely careful to avoid getting stuck in an inverted position. Because John was upside-down, the clock was ticking, and there was not enough time to get him out." 

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Incident Report)

"John and Josh broke off with two friends to find a challenge: a tight but navigable passage called the Birth Canal. They split up, wriggling into alcoves and passages to look for it. John picked a waist-high hole to explore. John went in headfirst, pushing himself along with his hips, his stomach, his fingers. Other cavers exploring this hole had found that only the nimblest of contortionists could navigate its tight corkscrew of rock. John found no place big enough to turn his body around and leave the tunnel. So he kept going, likely thinking he was in the Canal."

— Lindsay Whitehurst (Salt Lake Tribune)

"About an hour into the caving expedition, John decided to find the Nutty Putty Cave formation known as the Birth Canal, a tight passage that spelunkers must crawl through carefully if they dare. He found what he thought was the Birth Canal and inched his way into the narrow passage head first, moving forward using his hips, stomach, and fingers. But within minutes, he realized he’d made a grave mistake."

— William DeLong (All That's Interesting) 

How did Jones get stuck in the passage?

"John did something that most experienced cavers would probably not do (or hopefully learn not to do) - he entered a body-tight crawl-way head first without being sure that he could turn around or back out. That can be fatal, even if the passage is completely horizontal, because any entrapment leaves you in full-body contact with the cave walls and floor, leading directly to hypothermia. This can and does happen even in moderate temperatures (60-70 degrees F) such as those found in Nutty Putty Cave. The classic case of death by hypothermia in a cave is that of Floyd Collins, and every caver should know that story and be mindful of it.

From the accounts of his companions, I gather that John had some awareness of his predicament before becoming completely stuck, and was already struggling to try to back up and out of the passage when he lost his grip and slipped further in. As I understand it, at that point he was already several body lengths into the passage beyond the first major constriction - the place where a previous rescue had occurred. Why he chose to push forward so far before deciding to back out can probably never be known, but it is a tragic lesson for all cavers. This could have happened to any one of us who made the decision to push on in hopes of virgin cave, or in the expectation of finding a turn-around spot. It is not fair to blame John for doing something that most of us have also done at some point in our caving careers - going a bit too far before deciding to back out." 

— Bill Putnam, NSS Chairman (Cavechat Forum)

"John entered the passage head-first and continued head-first at least 30 feet down the steep, tight section. At some point, he realized he could not back out against the force of gravity. John sent the others out of the passage and continued downward, hoping to find a place to turn around. The others soon heard him yelling that he was stuck and needed help.

John made several mistakes. At 6 feet tall, and 190 lbs. he was very large for the passage he was in. None of the rescuers of John’s size were able to get anywhere near him. He elected to crawl head-first down a tight, nearly vertical passage. The passage dead-ends and offers nowhere to turn around. It is the type of passage that most cavers would enter feet-first in order to be able to escape, if they entered it at all. If John had been right-side-up, the rescuers would have had much more time to work, and he would likely be alive today.

It is believed by most of the rescuers that on his crawl downhill, John must have slipped and popped through the tightest part of the passage with the aid of gravity. Otherwise it is difficult to see how he could have made it through such a tight spot. John had retrograde amnesia when first contacted by rescuers, supporting the idea that he may have fallen through and hit his head."

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Incident Report)

"If you're going to go into an uncharted passage, think about it for a moment! Are you going to go in head first? Unless you're tied up from behind where somebody can pull you back out when you get into some place where there's no turnaround? In this case, John went up a passage, and we're talking a long passage. And he went up and he got stuck in a place where somebody had been rescued before- where Brock had been rescued.

When Josh [brother] came up near him, and they made the decision together, for him to maybe possibly go a little further, and maybe find a room where he could turn around and come back out, face first... That was a horrible decision! If he had just stayed where he was, rescuers could have got him out. And the fact that he was 14-feet further into that cave than anyone had ever been before. Nobody had ever been over that little ledge. 

Then he was wedged in with a rock under his rib-cage, and one arm and a head through the passage, and uggh... that makes you shudder. You would normally go into a passage like that feet first, so that as you realize this doesn't go anywhere, you could easily make it back out."

— Michael Leavitt, Cave Access Manager (RadioWest Interview) 

"As the rescuers related to me, John never would have made it through all of the twist and turns backwards. He made it quite a ways head first and was probably feeling a great deal of success until the final downward slide from which he couldn’t return."

— Michael Leavitt, Cave Access Manager (Nutty Putty Site)

"He [Jones] went in to the spot face first because he was climbing up, but then it curved and started heading downwards, then it got too small for him to push himself backwards up against gravity, so he slid down further and became wedged."

— Joey Stocking, Caver with Jones (Personal Blog)

"It basically got to a point where we were trying to figure out if the cave went any further, and that's the route John decided to take. He thought he could kind of keep going on his belly down further, but it got to point where he couldn't go any further and he got wedged in." 

— Joey Stocking, Caver with Jones (Salt Lake Tribune)

"Jones pushed himself 14 feet past a spot where another spelunker gotten themselves stuck and THAT rescue was a tough one. Of course Jones most likely didn't know that but either way if he was as experienced as sources say then he would've known better.
He went too far and beyond his own limits. He should've stopped when he had to strain and push and tried something easier. But he didn't... and the result was fatal."

— Ralph E. Powers, Caver (Cavechat Forum) 

"John unexpectedly found himself head-first, upside down, up against a dead-end, completely immobilized, unable to get himself out."

— Jones Family, Relatives (Nutty Putty Cave Site)

"When he [Jones] saw a fissure that dropped nearly straight down in front of him, it may have appeared to widen out at the bottom, giving him a spot to turn around. Rescuers believe John sucked in his chest to investigate the fissure, sliding his torso over a lip of rock and down into the 10-inch-wide side of the crevice. But when his chest expanded again, he was stuck. Struggling to free himself only made John slide deeper into the narrower, 8 1/2-inch-wide side of the fissure. One arm was pinned underneath him, the other forced backward by an outcropping of rock. The rainbow headlamp bounced off. Instead of widening so John could get out, the crack narrowed and all but closed."

— Lindsay Whitehurst (Salt Lake Tribune)

"John knew he was now just about stuck and had no room to turn around. He didn’t even have room to wriggle back out the way he’d come. He had to try to press forward. He tried to exhale the air in his chest so that he could fit through a space that was barely 10 inches across and 18 inches high, about the size of the opening of a clothes dryer. But when John inhaled again and his chest puffed back out, he got stuck for good. John’s brother was the first to find him. Josh tried to pull at his brother’s calves to no avail. But then John slid down into the passage even further, becoming trapped worse than before. His arms were now pinned beneath his chest and he couldn’t move at all." 

— William DeLong (All That's Interesting)

"He had come to a dead end. He was attempting to back out of the tight spot when his hand slipped and he plummeted headfirst with arms extended to catch himself into a five-foot deep narrow tube about 12 inches in diameter at a 70-degree angle."

— Bishop and Momma Pete, Jones in-laws (Cavechat Forum) 

How did other cavers describe the area and experience?

"That's the only dangerous place in the whole cave. I got down enough so my feet weren't quite sticking up the hole, and I realized I couldn't back out of this. There was no way to push, and I couldn't get a grip with my feet. I was slanted upside down and started to get a little worried. He [friend] kept pulling and pulling and finally I just popped out. I never went back to that section again. I don't want anything to do with it."

— Dale Green, Nutty Putty Discoverer (KSL News)

"Your advice to go feet first is very wise and yet not really practical for long yet unexplored passages because you have to be able to see your options as you crawl through. If you were really set on exploration of unmapped passages, then you would probably rig up the tiniest and strongest person in the group with a harness and ropes so that he/she could be easily retrieved and do it as a group exploration project. Then you would send the rigged little guy carefully into the passage always being able to get them back out. John Jones was involved in solo free exploring without any rigging." 

— Michael Leavitt, Cave Access Manager (Nutty Putty Site)

"Anyone familiar with Nutty Putty, knows there are two distinct sections. Not far inside, you have to make a choice which section you'll explore. One is down a long, steep chute that bends to the right at the bottom and leads to Bob's Push where Brother Jones perished. This area is 100+ feet below ground. I've always thought this leg of the cave was boring and I rarely visited. This is where all the rescues have taken place. This part of the cave is very, very different from the other branch.

The other option is to go left before going down the steep chute. Here you will find a series of several 'rooms' the wrap around on top and under each other, all leading to the Big Room and more rooms beyond. This area is all within 30 of the surface, and is very well ventilated. Here there are many beautiful formations and an abundance of the famous 'nutty putty' for which this cave is named. This more popular part of the cave could easily be preserved for future visitors while sealing off the half that contains the deceased remains."

— Dean Hale, Caver (Deseret News Comments)

"The popular cave attracted about 5,000 to 10,000 people a year, despite its remote access point at the top of a hill west of State Road 68. On Friday, a draft of warm, moist air drifted out of the moss-lined entrance at the top of the cave as if the earth were exhaling. It was named for its soft brown "nutty putty" clay, which is found nowhere else in the country, said Mike Leavitt, the leader of the caving group Timpanogos Grotto. Because it is has no long rappels, it's a popular spot for beginner and intermediate cavers. 'It is special in its own way,' he [Leavitt] said. 'There are many safe parts of the cave, and there are extreme parts'." 

— Lindsay Whitehurst (Salt Lake Tribune)

"I have been through Nutty Putty many times and there is always the potential for danger in any activity. Just initially getting into the cave is a very tight squeeze and I had a friend get stuck there once. A friend and I got stuck in (what I believe) to be the very same place John was trapped. It is up past the birth canal and you have to worm your way through a very tight tunnel about 10-15 feet and then negotiate a very tight 90 degree turn. Once you get around the turn the small tunnel turns left and slopes down. I'm 6'5 and I believe I was around 210 lbs at the time when a buddy of mine and I got stuck there (him more so than I). We were only stuck for 20 minutes or so."

— Scott C (KSL News Comments)

"When you come up from Bob's Push you have the Birth Canal above your head, the area is to the left of that room. You squeeze through a tight area and find a small hole in a wall. About 50 feet into that hole you come to the dead end. Most people don't know that it exists and that is why there haven't been far most situations like this before. My younger brother was stuck there upside down for 3 hours in 2003 and it was the most terrifying hours as we desperately tried to free him. Fortunately for my brother things went right and he came out with only cuts and bruises. I realize now just how lucky we all were that night."

— Dave T (KSL News Comments) 

"The Birth canal is the entrance passage that goes into the chamber which leads to the Aorta canal (through the hole in the top of that chamber) and the 'L-turn' is at the end of the Aorta. Those spots definitely do not have any incline or decline. There wouldn't be a spot to be trapped upside down. The birth canal is CONSIDERABLY wide compared to the Aorta. What may have occurred is this: He went through the Aorta, went into the bottom of the chambers after the L-turn, and got stuck there. I have gone into those chambers and there are definitely some tight spots that are very steep."

— Rooster21 (KSL News Comments)

"I have been in the cave a bunch of times. It can be a super fun outing if you're careful. When ever you go down one of the many tight fingers in the cave you always have to go FEET FIRST! If not you'll get stuck in many different places."

— Stephen M (KSL News Comments) 

"I have gone spelunking at nutty putties on a number of occasions. Very easy to get into trouble if you're not super careful. I fell down a hole there and caught myself luckily. I am not claustrophobic by any means but that birth canal just about made me panic. And I was skinny 16 year old girl when I went through it."

— Zoo Cats (KSL News Comments) 

"Yeah. That birth canal is a pain. I've taken about a half dozen Scout troops to Nutty Putty. I stopped going through the birth canal years ago. I just point and tell them to let me know when their ready to come back. It's NOT a comfortable situation. There is one way in to the cave, and one way out. The video shows images of just the opening of the cave. The Birth Canal is even smaller though similar to the cave itself there is only one way in and one way out. The Birth Canal is the entrance to Bob's Push (Just a big room with some rock formations to look at: mostly popcorn corral)."

— The Voice of Reason (KSL News Comments)

"I remember back when I was 19 and I went to the nutty putty caves with some friends. I had no idea we would be going underground and doing army crawls on our belly to get inside. I was more than scared when we got to the part of the 'birth canal'. All I could think in my mind was if there is an earthquake right now we would all be buried alive and no one would even know we are here."

— ScooterGirl (KSL News Comments)

"I went through the birth canal and at one point I remember looking at an opening and saying 'no way.' I got out and stayed where I could move freely."

— Cankerpuss (KSL News Comments)

"I've been in this cave a dozen times (3 times with a group of 20 or more) and never had a problem. I know the spot where this guy got stuck and believe me, he knew it wasn't a good idea to go where he went."

— Matt N (KSL News Comments)

"I've been in the nutty putty caves at least 20 times, its a pretty safe place as long as you stay in the main areas, its the birth canal that is so dangerous, thats the area that should be closed off. not the whole cave."

— Jared36 (KSL News Comments)

"I've been up in that same space a few times. 'the birth canal' isn't all that bad, it's just that the entrance to that passage is in the roof, and there is a 90 degree turn a few feet in that can be hard to navigate if you're tall."

— Vinney (KSL News Comments)

"I explored Nutty Putty as a Boy Scout back in the day when you didn't need a permit. I recall very vividly the 'birth canal.' Even as a zit faced teenager I had a heck of a time shimmying through that part. It was fun spelunking the cave but it wasn't really that interesting. It was dirty dark and fairly cramped. I was extremely glad to get out of that thing and into the open air."

— Cankerpuss (KSL News Comments)

"Whenever we did the birth canal we left our packs at the entrance of the passage and just took the light attached to our helmets. There are places in that passage that you could get food and water around a stuck person, but right at the end it gets tight enough that a big person could completely block the passage. It doesn't take a real fat guy to get stuck, last time I did the birth canal I was 6'2 and 210 and I couldn't crawl with my arms underneath me at the end, I had to crawl with them above my head."

— Climberpete (KSL News Comments) 

"When you first go up through the birth canal, you come into a little room. Looking INTO the room you can go through a crack in the wall to the left and it leads to an area where there is a perfectly round hole in the wall. If you can manage to get into that hole and around the 90 degree turn 8ft up into that hole it then winds again down to the left. A buddy of mine and I got stuck there once (I'm 6'5) and it was pretty scary. It could happen to anyone and that would be terrifying."

— Scott C (KSL News Comments) 

"I don't think people realize how tight it is down there, especially Bob's Push. I was able to get through half of Bob's Push before I got stuck. Fortunately I realized I wasn't going in any further and backed out (and waited in the dark with a little mouse!) To describe Bob's Push... it's a hole in the wall, maybe 12-18 inches by about 20-24 inches that is angled up and to the left. It then angles down and to the right before it straightens out a bit. In order to get through it, you have to push your body (you can't use your arms because they have to be extended fully in front of you) using your legs. You get through the first half on your back, so you can bend around the turn, then when the downward angle happens, you have to spin your body 180 degrees to get through the next part."

— Nfteblj  (KSL News Comments)

"I remember getting to a tight spot called the birth canal, aptly named because of its tight circumference and long narrow tube which terminated in a womb like room. It was the most uncomfortable part of the trip and I recall thinking, I'm not doing that again!" 

— Brooke Neal, Caver (Nutty Putty Site)

"I was one of the people there... I don't know why the news media is saying he is in the birth canal... he is in the bottom of Ed's Push... he got stuck on his way in... the opening to the beginning of the tunnel is plenty big enough but you have to go head first up and over a 'L' shaped tunnel with a 45 degree angle on each side... once he was on the other side... he realized to late that it was too tight a fit... he was stuck before he knew to turn back.

Despite its notoriety, the birth canal is no problem for someone his size (I'm just slightly lighter and shorter and it isn't even a close call for me to make it through with no problem.) It looks smaller than it is due to the angle you see it from. The entrance is near the floor with a slight incline and the rock overhangs the entrance a bit to make it look tiny.

However, once you are inside of the chamber that the birth canal opens up into, there is some tighter stuff you can explore. There is a hole above you that most people probably don't even realize is there. You climb up for 10 or 15 feet and then it connects to a horizontal tube that goes a couple hundred feet. I can see getting stuck turning the corner between the vertical shaft and horizontal tube if you turned wrong. My guess is he's in something similar to that (or maybe even the same spot)." 

— Unknown (Deseret News Comments)

The Rescue Begins

How did Jones' caving party respond to his situation?

"As Josh wound through the tunnel, crab-crawling feet first between the cramped, muddy walls, he felt a creeping apprehension. When he reached the corkscrew, he got stuck himself. By then he could see his brother, and dread settled in. 'Seeing his feet and seeing how swallowed he was by the rock, that’s when I knew it was serious.' Josh said. 'It was really serious.' 

He wrapped his feet around John’s calves and pulled. John’s body inched up, but he had nothing to hold onto and slipped back into the crevice as soon as Josh released him. It was all backward for Josh. He felt powerless and overwhelmed. His older brother was helpless in a dark hole. 'I had to get out,' said Josh. He knew they needed search and rescue teams. Now. Josh crawled back up to the surface and called 911 while a friend went into the tunnel to stay with John."

"I was only able to see his two feet that were hanging there in the crevice, I wasn't able to see more because he was engulfed in the crevice itself."

— Josh Jones, Brother of Jones (Salt Lake Tribune)

"We didn't know he [Jones] was stuck for several minutes. Jessica and I waited for Josh to get out of the hole he was exploring. When he did we told him (without much thought) to go in and see if John needed help, meanwhile Jessica and I explored two other spots where the cave could have continued. The rest of the group joined us at this point. We could not find where it continued, so sat waiting near the area. 

After about 15 minutes I hollered to Josh if things were okay. He came out in a mix of calm and panic and said he was going to go up and call for help and asked that I go in a comfort John and maybe try to help, because I was the only adult that would fit. So I crawled in above John (it was a very tight spot and I often would panic because it was difficult to move) and John and I tried several things to move him up. I did the best I could to keep him in good spirits by giving him little goals to reach.  

Mike, John's brother, was outside of the tight spot talking to me, which I much appreciated because it helped keep my spirits up. But after an hour I was becoming tired and scraped up and started to get psychologically messed up. I crawled out and Josh crawled in to see what he could do." 

— Joey Stocking, Caver with Jones (Personal Blog)

"Seeing that they were unable to free John, his family called for help at approximately 10:00 pm. Utah County SAR, including several members that are experienced cavers responded. Having rescued others from this cave, including the same spot where John was stuck, the rescuers were confident they would get him out. The fact that John was upside-down made this rescue more difficult than the previous ones. Another call for small cave rescuers went out at midnight."

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Incident Report)

What was the initial assessment of rescue personnel? 

"They traversed its chambers for about 30 minutes before reaching the 135-foot tunnel where John was stuck. Crawling on her belly, Susie Motola inched her way through a cramped limestone tunnel that wound through the earth like the path of a worm. This unmapped passage of Utah County’s Nutty Putty Cave was no wider than the opening of a washing machine, and Susie had ropes tied around her ankles so other rescuers could pull her out if she got stuck. 

Twenty minutes passed before the beam of her headlamp fell upon a pair of navy-and-black running shoes sticking out of a narrow crevice at the tunnel’s end. He [Jones] was trapped nearly upside down, his 6-foot, 200-pound body seemingly swallowed by the rock. Above John, Susie‘s slight, 5-foot-3-inch frame was also encased. She couldn’t fully extend her arms and legs. He had been stuck for more than three hours, one arm bent underneath his chest, the other forced backward. His calves were free but useless." 

— Lindsay Whitehurst (Salt Lake Tribune)

"Since he [Ryan Shurtz] was 4, he has spent most of his free time exploring caves and more than once acted as a trapped victim for Utah Cave Rescue, a group his father helped found. At 6-foot-1 he’s taller than most cavers, yet is whip-thin, flexible and seemingly immune to claustrophobia. 

But when he reached the narrow crevice trapping 26-year-old John Jones in Utah County’s Nutty Putty Cave, he had to fight back tears. The simple geometry looked impossible. The crevice was at the end of a cramped tunnel, and rescuers had realized hours earlier that extracting John’s 6-foot, 200-pound body would likely break his legs." 

— Lindsay Whitehurst (Salt Lake Tribune)

"By the time you go in through the twists and turns, and up and around there and where he had slipped down to- uh he got further than anybody we ever knew in that cave, in that passage. To get your body contorted around those turns and finally get up there, it would take you from the main passage to get there, about half an hour!"

— Michael Leavitt, Cave Access Manager (RadioWest Interview)

"The rescuers never saw much more than his feet and ankles. Jones' feet were sticking out, his head down, his body completely plugging a narrow tunnel 10 to 14 inches wide. Where he is trapped, he is on a bend. The lip [of rock at the bend] basically captured the center part of his body. So there's no way to really get a hold on him to be able to pull directly straight back."

— Sgt. Eldon Packer, Utah County Sheriff's Office (KSL News)

"Many people have a misconception that Jones was wedged in the hole. He was not. The sheriff, TV and newspapers reported that and I even posted such early in this thread. However, there was clearance all the way around his body, except for the surface he was lying on of course. This is why the rescuers rejected the frequent suggestion that muzzmining or microshaving would have freed the body" 

— Dale Green, Nutty Putty Discoverer (Cavechat Forum) 

"This 'formation' was not a speleothem, of which this cave is nearly devoid. It is the description by a non-caver member of the sheriff's group of a sharp ridge of rock at a bend in the passage that caused a lot of difficulty getting the victim pulled across. However, the sheriff's department spokesman said earlier that if there were speleothems they would not be spared if this action meant saving the man's life or cause injury to the rescuers." 

— Dale Green, Nutty Putty Discoverer (Cavechat Forum)

"There is an undercut lip which juts out at roughly 90 degrees. Think of a number 7 now hollow that 7 out and try to lift a body through that... as Dale [Green] stated there is no room to do a lot of maneuvering, and again rescuers were barely able to fit through the passage themselves" 

— Ralph E. Powers, Caver (Cavechat Forum)

"Around this time, Rob Stillmar, a wiry, strong, caver that had worked on previous Nutty Putty rescues went head-first into the passage to try and work with John’s legs. While going in head-first was risky, and exactly how John got into trouble, it was really the only way that anyone could do anything to assist John. Going in feet-first would only get the rescuer’s feet in proximity with John’s feet, accomplishing nothing. Rob went in head-first with webbing tied around him so that others could help haul him out."

"John was on his left shoulder with his left arm pinned under him. His body completely filled the passage, preventing all attempts to access any part of his body above the waist." 

"John was really only about 10 minutes from the entrance" 

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Incident Report)

"Stuck at a 70-degree angle with 'a good portion of his waist and torso' pinched in an approximately 10-inch-wide space. His head was out and unsupported at one end, and his feet stuck out at the other end. After crews got him out of the crevice, they still would have had to pull him through the difficult stretch of cave behind him, which twisted and turned in 90-degree angles over uneven ground".

— Sgt. Spencer Cannon, Utah County Sheriff's Office (Nutty Putty Site)

"Entrapment is an immediate life emergency. It is also a very insidious one, because the person often seems at first to be in no immediate danger. "He's just stuck." But while he's stuck, he's dying. The ability to move is essential to life. Once you are in a passage like that, your body fills it up to the point where no one can get past your feet or lower legs. That situation places you at great risk if you become incapacitated in any way. Being head-down exacerbates an already bad situation." 

— Bill Putnam, NSS Chairman (Cavechat Forum)

"Just six volunteers had been able to crawl through the tunnel to reach John, out of a total of 137 rescuers who responded." 

— Lindsay Whitehurst (Salt Lake Tribune)

"The crevice is simply too small, and the passage too winding, for anyone to crawl inside and pull him out without being at risk themselves." 

— John Valentine, State Senator and Cave Rescue (Nutty Putty Site)

"Only small cavers could actually get near John. He got himself into a truly horrible situation" 

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Cavechat Forum)

"The reality is, a crack and crevice entrapment is perhaps one of the most dangerous accidents that can occur on a cave." 

— Greg Moore, NSS Caver (Cavechat Forum) 

What early attempts were made to free Jones?

"Inside the tunnel, Susie tried every thing she could think of to free John. She helped string a rope from John back to the rest of the team in an open pit at the tunnel’s entrance. The team pulled, but didn’t have enough power to move John: the friction of the rope rubbing stone was too strong. Susie helped him shift positions, but she couldn’t lift him. 

She stretched a water bottle down to his right arm, the one forced backward, so he could tip the bottle forward. The water lowed down his arm, and Susie hoped some of it might reach his mouth. She cut off his jeans to try to free up a few inches. After about two hours, Susie had tried everything she knew and crawled out for rest while another rescuer took her place."

— Lindsay Whitehurst (Salt Lake Tribune)

"Rob worked with John for a long time, but the valiant effort only succeeded in moving him a short distance. Rob became stuck on his way back up, and it took some time for him to free himself, with help from above. Around this time, webbing straps were placed around John’s legs in preparation for a haul system that was being built above him." 

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Incident Report)

"As a rescuer, by the time you get there- there's no room, it isn't like you can crawl up next to him, and nicely fit a harness around. You can barely get up to where his feet are, hoping that you can get back. The first dozen hours up there, were purely trying to get in there and get a rigging around him, where he could be helped backwards."

— Michael Leavitt, Cave Access Manager (RadioWest Interview)

"The craw space was 12 inches high so lifting him was difficult. The lip of rock lodged under his ribs acted like a fish-hook preventing him from being pulled out. The crevice was so tight that John lacked mobility of his arms and legs. Rescue workers were called. They worked diligently to get him out, but the task was extremely difficult due to his position and the narrow passage they had to work in." 

— Bishop and Momma Pete, Jones in-laws (Cavechat Forum)

Who was called in for the ongoing rescue effort?

"Another call for small cave rescuers went out at about 3:00 am and again at 5:00 am on the 25th. By 8:00 am there were approximately 100 people on scene, including Utah County Sherriff personnel, SAR team members including Utah Cave SAR, many different area fire rescue crews, paramedics, National Park Service personnel, and volunteer cavers. 

At least six rescuers with NCRC training were on hand, including a former national instructor, and others with higher than Level 1 training. The top of the hill where the entrance is located was a typical large-scale rescue circus, complete with fire trucks, ambulances, police vehicles, and caver rigs on the ground, and helicopters circling overhead. John had been stuck upside-down for nearly 12 hours, but was responsive and was helping the rescuers as much as he could. 

At any given time, there were about 15 rescuers in the cave. Cavers were given operational control underground, with fire and sheriff’s office personnel rotated in and out on about a 2-3 hour schedule. Some cavers were underground for 12 hours at a time, with a few cavers that had arrived early in the rescue doing two twelve-hour shifts." 

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Incident Report)

"All rescue personnel working to actually remove the victim from start to finish were in fact cavers with cave rescue training from NCRC, including one EMT with much medical training, and several expert riggers. County Fire and Rescue people were on top providing equipment, service and moral support, not in-cave work except to transfer equipment. Most of them wouldn't fit in the tube, anyway. You aren't going to find cavers more qualified that what we have. Please withhold comments until those who were involved can post what the situation was."

"While there were many volunteers, most of the 100+ people at the site were paid employees. In addition, there were probably a couple dozen vehicles from various organizations involved including the huge rescue trucks from the fire departments and at least one helicopter." 

— Dale Green, Nutty Putty Discoverer (Cavechat Forum)

"Lastly, our cave search and rescue team is 100% volunteer, and is of world class quality. They do an excellent job, and have successfully responded to many calls. If I were stuck in a cave I would want no other team to respond. I'm 100% confident that this rescue failure will be examined in minute detail, and if any changes to policy and procedures need to be made, they will be." 

— RockMonkey, Cave Rescue Relative (RME4x4 Forum)

"That additional resources from out of state were not called or even put on standby-alert is on the shoulders of the IC. They probably felt with over 100 people on the scene (in and out of the cave) that they had all they needed. There were more than several NCRC trained personnel on the scene (this information I got personally via phone from one of the leaders of the cave rescue team out in Utah... with whom I had trained with previously)." 

— Ralph E. Powers, Caver (Cavechat Forum)

"It is also unfair to second guess the rescuers. From what I have been able to determine, they definitely had appropriate equipment, training, skills, and organization. They did everything that their collective experience and expertise could come up with in the particular circumstances that existed at Nutty Putty Cave. That it was not enough to save John is not their fault, in my opinion, and I believe I have studied and worked in the field of cave rescue enough to be confident in that conclusion. 

Cave rescue in America has come a long, long way in the last 20 years. While it is certainly true that there are many local rescue squads in cave-rich areas that do not include any cavers or do not have specific cave rescue training and equipment, the situation is still much, much better than it used to be. For example, there is greater cooperation and coordination among cavers, cave rescue teams, local rescue squads, and state or federal emergency management agencies. The Nutty Putty incident is a case in point - the local rescue squad as well as the regional cave rescue team (Utah Cave Search and Rescue) includes NCRC-trained people, as well as people with mountain rescue and technical rope rescue training. They also called upon local cavers and cavers from around the region, many of whom had NCRC training."

— Bill Putnam, NSS Chairman (Cavechat Forum)

"The 137 people who tried to free Jones are physically and mentally exhausted after the 27-hour effort, and will be offered critical stress counseling" 

— Sgt. Tom Hodgson, Utah County Sheriff's Office (Nutty Putty Site)

"They called upon every strong, small caver in the state." 

— Michael Leavitt, Cave Access Manager (RadioWest Interview)

The Rescue Intensifies

How was the pulley system configured and executed?

"Rope was tied to his feet holding him on the shelf. The rope was part of a pulley system, anchored to the side of the cave and extending to the mouth of the cave." 

— Bishop and Momma Pete, Jones in-laws (Cavechat Forum)

"In one place it states that the haul lines ran through 15 tandem pulleys. This is incorrect. I assume the writer may have added the pulleys that were in the haul systems themselves, although that would not even add up to 15. There were 4 redirects, each with two pulleys. Each line ran to a 3:1 system operated by 4 rescuers each." 

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Cavechat Forum)

"A 3:1 haul system was set up about 60’ up the passage from John, where there was actually room for a haul team. Unfortunately, the haul line had to pass through four pulleyed deviations in the twisting crawl-way in order to reach John. Some of these were originally rigged on natural anchors and climbing cams. When the extreme forces on the redirect anchors became apparent, they were all changed over to bolt anchors except the one closest to John, which was rigged on a seemingly bomber natural anchor in the ceiling.

The haul shifts were accomplished with one very small caver in proximity with John, moving and pulling on his legs. The haul and stop commands came from this position as no one else in the operation could see the patient. After a few haul sequences, the friction in the system proved to be too much. To attempt to alleviate this, another 3:1 haul line was added, with one attached to each of John’s legs. Many attempts were made to establish a connection point around his waist, but no one could reach far enough in to do it. 

Once both haul lines were operational, the team began to make the only real progress of the entire rescue. This was accomplished by encouraging John to do most of the work, with the dual haul systems capturing any upward progress that he made. Many stops for slack on the line were called, in order to take some of the squeezing pressure off of John’s legs. Using an oxygen hose, rescuers were able to get water and Gatorade to John’s mouth, but it is unclear how much fluid he was actually able to take in."

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Incident Report)

"Not only was it difficult for us to reach him, but any rope systems we set up to pull him out had to make at least four 90 degree turns and rub against at least five feet of rock. The rope drag caused by this rubbing, especially when weight was put on the rope, is impossible to fight, even with seven people on two separate 3-to-1 mechanical advantage systems (which meant it was like 21 people pulling as hard as they could). Also, we didn’t have a straight-up pull, but instead needed to bring him up, where his feet hit the roof and stopped, then over. 

Anyway, it was difficult. When I got myself deeper into the cave and saw all the rope drag, I quickly got the drills back in there and we placed a pair of bolts to which we attached pulleys which eliminated perhaps 90% of the friction in the system. Then when we hauled on the rope, we were able to raise John a foot at a time. Very encouraging! He knocked knuckles and pulled, then reset the systems and did it again and again."

— Shaun Roundy, Cave Rescue (Nutty Putty Site) 

"The team worked to solve the friction problem by rigging a pulley system anchored to the tunnel’s walls with a series of climbing cams -- anchors designed to fit quickly and tightly into rock. They had to push the cams through a thick layer of powdery calcite that coated the cave walls, then string the rope through the attached pulley. After each new cam, they’d try the system again. If the friction was still too great, they’d add another pulley. It was all painfully slow. Each trip into the tunnel to pass a piece of gear took nearly an hour." 

"Shortly after he arrived, rescue crews got a set of heavy-duty air chisels and drills they would use to rebuild a pulley system designed to pull John out of the fissure. They initially created the pulley system using climbing cams, but the anchors couldn’t get a strong grip in the layer of powdery calcite that coated the cave’s walls. Ryan would stay with John during the reconstruction effort. When the new system -- drilled into the rock -- was finished, the team would inch John up. Ryan would then try to shift John from the 8 1/2 inch wide side of the crevice where he was stuck, moving him to the slightly wider side of the fissure. Next the crew would pull as hard as it could. They had medicine ready to give John intravenously immediately after they freed him."

"When the pulley system was finished, it was 4 p.m. on Nov. 25, and John had been trapped for 19 hours. But rescuers finally had the power to pull him out. The rope was strung through nearly 15 tandem pulleys drilled into the wall of the cave. Closest to John,  he rope went through a natural arch in the wall just above the crack where he was trapped." 

— Lindsay Whitehurst (Salt Lake Tribune)

"It depends on where in the passage he was. The schematic effectively shows the highest point that he was hauled to. I don't think he was quite as vertical as shown, but it was close. The angle does change several times further in. (not shown on schematic) I also have the impression that the distance from haul team to John (at his nearest) was about twice what is shown on the schematic. So the depiction contains errors, but it is still very helpful in giving folks the general idea." 

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Cavechat Forum) 

What made the rescue so difficult?

"So, why couldn't they get him out of the hole? Remember that John was over 6 feet tall, weighed over 200 pounds, and was head-down in a hole at a 70 degree angle. Friction of the body against rough limestone would have magnified the amount of force required to lift the body by an appreciable amount above 200 pounds. He crawled into that hole from a near-horizontal passage that was probably less that a foot high. You can't just tie a rope around his feet and haul him up while lying horizontally in the passage.

A bolt was placed vertically above the hole and a rope around his feet was redirected with a pulley down the horizontal access passage of about 20 feet. I was told that at least 4 other bolt/pulleys had to be used in the passage to keep the rope from rubbing the limestone. There was no room above John to install a come-a-long or similar apparatus to pull him out, as many have suggested." 

— Dale Green, Nutty Putty Discoverer (Cavechat Forum)

"The problem rescuers could not overcome was a small lip of rock at a critical bend in the narrow tunnel. 'The lip basically captured the center part of his body,' Valentine said, 'so that as you pulled against it, you were pulling like against a fish hook. It would hang up just underneath the rib cage, against the lip that was in the narrow part of the cave.'" 

— John Hollenhorst and Nicole Gonzales (KSL News)

"Search and rescue, the firemen, those are big burly guys who couldn't get anywhere near [Jones] to make this rescue." 

— Michael Leavitt, Cave Access Manager (RadioWest Interview)

"Rescuers ordered six gallons of vegetable oil to help slide John out. They even considered explosives. But they quickly determined neither would work. Drills and chisels continued to arrive throughout the day, but the larger equipment was too big to position near John. The smaller equipment was too slow: when they tried to widen the rocky corkscrew to prepare for John’s exit, it took an hour and a half to drill through just 6 inches of rock."

"John had been trapped nearly upside down for 12 hours. With fluids pooling dangerously in his head and lungs, the shock of the injury [breaking his legs] could kill him." 

— Lindsay Whitehurst (Salt Lake Tribune)

What was the condition of Jones' health?

"The doctors here can confirm how bad it is medically to have your head down in a compromised position like that. Combine that with issues such as hypothermia, lack of water and food and possibly compartment syndrome, it's a very bad situation. Now add in lack of access, a tight bend and other factors." 

— Greg Moore, NSS Caver (Cavechat Forum) 

"Jones' position was nearly straight up and down - close to 160 to 170 degree angle. At that position, it would have been very difficult for Jones to breathe. The rib cage is built from the top-down so the lungs expand into the body cavity. But when someone is upside down, the lungs are working against the weight of your liver, of your intestines and the breathing muscles have a difficult time overcoming that. Eventually, people in a head-down position will most likely die of suffocation." 

— Wendy Wright, Professor of Neurology (ABC News)

"The blood vessels in the legs are endowed with fibers which constrict them when we stand upright, but the brain's arteries do not have that capacity, In other words, our body is designed to prevent blood from pooling at our feet when we stand up, but it isn't designed to prevent blood from pooling in our head if we are turned upside down. Therefore you could get brain swelling and brain hemorrhages. 

That pooling of blood can cause a variety of problems before a brain hemorrhage. The heart may not be able to get enough blood to the kidneys, causing kidney failure and death. The pooling blood in the brain may also cause someone to go unconscious, or even go into a coma. Deep brain swelling can lead to coma. If the brain centers that control your heart and your circulation and your breathing are damaged, then of course you lose your ability to breath and your circulation may fail." 

— Dr. Jay N. Cohn, Professor of Medicine (ABC News)

"Hanging upside down made it very difficult for John to breath. His internal organs pressed down on his lungs and the rock walls restricted deep breathing. Since John’s arms were extended in front of him he could push upward a little to relieve some of the pressure on his lungs from the sides of the cave, but as time passed his arms lost their strength and went numb, as did his legs. The veins in the legs are designed to return blood to the heart. That design worked against him upside down. The temperature in the cave was around 60 degrees, much warmer than outside, but still much lower than his body temperature. Hypothermia began its numbing effect.

He was in very bad shape and went in and out of consciousness. His legs were blue from lack of circulation and oxygenated blood. With some massaging John’s arms began to function again since they had been below the heart. John’s legs were no longer functioning and were without a pulse. John would have lost both legs if they had been able to get him out of the cave. Rescuers would reportedly also have had to break both legs backwards to maneuver him out." 

— Bishop and Momma Pete, Jones in-laws (Cavechat Forum) 

"If there truly is compromise of the arterial circulation, he [Jones] could lose a limb. However, losing a limb would be unlikely because there are several avenues of arterial flow in the arm. Another potential complication -- from a combination of being immobilized and having compression to a limb -- is muscle breakdown, causing the elevation of an enzyme that can cause kidney damage. The enzyme, creatine phosphokinase, is also created during exercise, but in amounts small enough that the kidneys can clear it out. But when muscles are traumatized, you can have a large load released and the kidneys can't clear it and it causes kidney damage." 

— Karl Vizmeg, Physician (Salt Lake Tribune) 

"The human body is designed to walk upright, and the heart works with the force of gravity — not against it. When rescuers told trauma physician Doug Murdock that John was nearly upside down, he knew the trapped man didn’t have much time.
'Being upside down, your body has to pump the blood out of the brain all the time,' he said. 'Your body isn’t set up to do that ... The entire system starts to fail.' 

Murdock headed for the scene, knowing blood and fluids would be pooling in John’s brain and lungs. His circulation would be slowing, capillaries leaking , toxins building up in his blood. If the rescuers were to free John, those toxins could rush to his heart and kill him. There are very few studies about the long-term effects of being upside down, but Murdock thought John might have eight to 10 hours to live."

"As he [Jones] talked, his voice grew more nasal, his breathing labored. She [Susie] could hear that his lungs were filling with fluid." 

— Lindsay Whitehurst (Salt Lake Tribune)

"There are a number of situations in which a caver can be at great risk of death or serious injury simply by being stranded or immobile. For example, being suspended head-down for a prolonged period can also be fatal. So can being suspended immobile in a seat harness. And as we have seen in a number of cases, being stuck in a tight passage for an extended period places a caver a great risk of death by hypothermia. If one of these situations occurs and no one can get to the stranded caver to help, he or she is at extreme risk." 

— Bill Putnam, NSS Chairman 

"My brother-in-law was in on the recovery effort (he's a fireman), and he told me today that the news reports of him getting food and water were fantasy. They couldn't see his face, so there's no way of getting him those things.

— I Lean, Forums Poster (RME4x4 Forum)

"Due to the circumstances with his body being held the way it was and being wedged, it was most likely difficult to get a full deep breath," Cannon said. "It would have affected his ability to breathe adequately."

— Sgt. Spencer Cannon, Utah County Sheriff's Office (Deseret News)

"John oscillated between calm, coherent conversation to helplessly thrashing his legs in sheer panic." 

— Lindsay Whitehurst (Salt Lake Tribune)

Why was information on the rescue so limited?

"For those of you frustrated with the flow of information, you should know that the Utah County Sheriff's Office has jurisdiction over this rescue. They have issued what is basically a gag order to all of us that were involved. The sheriff is concerned about unofficial reports making it into the public arena. Please know that there is much to be said, but it cannot be said. We will have to wait until the official reports come out, and then we'll probably have more breathing room for discussion."

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Cavechat Forum) 

"Dale stated that he was waiting in vain for someone with on-site knowledge to post. I have been mostly holding back due to what I was told by the AHJ. We were not to publish any information until the official report came out. Now it is obvious that there will be no official report. If it is okay for other rescuers to give interviews to a major newspaper, then certainly it is okay for me to share with fellow cavers here. I would like to apologize to the caving community for the lack of information. 

It is our nature to discuss and learn from accidents. The Utah County Sheriff has prevented us from indulging this part of our nature so far. I am sorry. It is the dearth of information that caused all the wild speculation and continues to feed uninformed questions like the ones that monkey raised. I feel partly responsible for this lack. I was only trying to follow the rules. I was on work time at the rescue, so did not feel the same right to say what I wanted as if I had been a volunteer." 

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Cavechat Forum)

"I have written a full report for ACA. Now that the gag order is effectively lifted, I could post it here or link to it if someone has a website I could upload it to." 

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Cavechat Forum)

"I was the only one involved in all of that, who really wasn't under some kind of gag order after the fact. Because I wasn't involved with the state agency directly. I was a private individual, volunteer." 

— Michael Leavitt, Nutty Putty Manager (RadioWest Interview)

"Finally, during any rescue all rescuer interactions with the press should be handled through a Press Information Officer (PIO). Inaccurate comments can cause a lot of confusion and hurt for family members, rescuers, and other cavers." 

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Incident Report)

"There were some things that happened down there that will never be published, legal action or no, and getting those details right with the family may be the cause for delay. I will not engage you in a discussion about this."

— Dale Green, Nutty Putty Discoverer (Cavechat Forums) 

Tragedy Strikes

Was Jones ever actually free from the crevice?

"I would like to clear up one thing however. Several news outlets have reported that John was "free" and then the rigging failed, sending him back to where he started. This is incorrect. When the redirect popped, John was still several hours from being 'free'. I estimate he was probably 2 hours of hauling and squeezing from where he would have been able to sit up."

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Cavechat Forum) 

"Unfortunately, during the day, one of the rescuers had exited the cave and told the press that John was nearly free and the team would have him out in a couple of hours. It was broadcast over television news that John was free and on his way out. Only about an hour later, the rigging failed. Thus it was reported in many media outlets across the U.S. that John had been freed, and then the rigging failure caused him to fall all the way back to where he started. Nothing could have been further from the truth." 

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Incident Report) 

"Rescuers briefly pulled him out of the crevice using a pulley system and ropes tied to his feet, but he slipped back in after an anchor broke free of the cave wall."

— Lindsay Whitehurst (Salt Lake Tribune) 

"He was never free. They managed to pull him back out a little bit, enough to get access to his feet. There was still a long way to go to get him out. They did get an IV started in his foot. The single anchor did fail, and he did fall a small distance back down."

— RockMonkey, Cave Rescue Relative (RME4x4 Forum)

What exactly went wrong with the final rescue effort?

"At one point in the process, Ryan Shurtz was in the forward rescuer position, manipulating John’s legs and encouraging him to help. Ryan was unfortunately in the zone of entrapment underneath the final deviation in the haul line, because he had nowhere else to work. The natural bridge that the final deviation was rigged to had a sharp back edge that had been slowly cutting through the 11mm rope anchoring the pulleys there. During a haul, the rope snapped, sending steel carabiners and rescue pulleys into Ryan’s face with incredible force. This impact knocked him out, partially severed his tongue, cut his face badly, and caused a small concussion. When Ryan came to, he was helped out of the crawl to the haul team area. He was cleaned up a little by the medics on scene, and then exited the cave under his own power to seek hospital care. Ryan made a full recovery, with some scars to show for it. He is very fortunate not to have been blinded or killed by the impact. Only about an hour later, the rigging failed.

The rigging failure also dropped John about a foot. The drop did not injure him further, but effectively ended any hope of rescue as his condition was already severely declining. Extracting Ryan, re-rigging the deviation with a bolt anchor, and getting the team back in position took over an hour. During this time, John became unresponsive. As a result, when the haul resumed, he was no longer able to help the rescuers with his upward progress. The haul was pulling him upward into a tight spot, much like trying to push a cork into an upturned bottle."

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Incident Report)

"There was no bolt or webbing at the final redirect. No bolt pulled out, no rock crumbled, and no webbing broke. One reason there is so much confusion on this is because only about six people actually made it to this spot. I don’t even know who originally rigged it. Dave Shurtz, who eventually replaced it with a bolt, told me that the original rigging was a short length of 11mm rope tied around a jug handle in the ceiling. It was doubled around the handle. The back of the handle had a sharp edge and actually cut through the rope anchor, sending the pulleys into Ryan’s face."

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Cavechat Forum)

"The haul systems ran through a twisting passage, requiring pulleyed redirects at each corner, four in all. As far as I can tell, the last one was set up on a natural anchor. It was very near the patient, one bend beyond where I could fit. I believe it was the anchor itself that blew, not the rope or cord as reported. The rescuer was actually hit in the face with two rescue pulleys and two carabiners.

While this setback was definitely the turning point of the rescue, John probably lost about two feet of progress as a result. Rescuers had already moved him a ways up the passage in the 15 or so hours before this. He was still a long way from being free, even without the blowout. Once the rigging was rebuilt with better anchors, by this time John was too exhausted to help us, rendering the setup useless. We were hauling him into a tight spot, with only his feet visible. He was head-down for 24 hours, with no way to turn him, and the clock beat us."

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Cavechat Forum)

"Yeah the rigging failure is still one of the hardest things to get good info on. I was under the impression that the rock broke until I went caving with Dave Shurtz back in March or so. He told me about the rope getting cut then. It is ironic, because rope failure is what was originally reported on TV. However, the news was talking about main line failure, which certainly did not happen. The rigging failure was essentially a communication failure. Those designing and modifying the haul system did not know the condition of this anchor. All the other ones had been replaced with bolts, this one was assumed to be a bolt as well, at least by me. 

I never made it that close to John. Too bad you don't have a hard copy of the Tribune, there is actually a pretty decent schematic [the rescue diagram] in the article. Unlike what you'll see here, the passage continues beyond John, and the redirect in question is shown wrong. The main line did not go through the jug handle. How much force was applied to it? Lots. Enough to cut an 11mm rope in half on a pointy rock."

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Cavechat Forum)

"I briefed about 20 law enforcement and other emergency services leaders, then was sent to give an update to the press. About the time I was telling them that things were going great and we might have him out in a few hours, a piece of gear failed and everything went sour. I heard three different accounts of which piece broke. At first I heard that a prussik failed (which was capturing any progress we made on raising the ropes) but it couldn’t have been that because the other rope would have held the load. I also heard that a cam stuck in a crack and a bolt drilled into the rock had failed. Either way, it was due to the clayish-rock of the cave. 

A piece of gear caught a rescuer on the face and paramedics gave him stitches before he exited the cave. A delay was caused in having to get that rescuer out from deep within the narrow tube, having to replace the blown piece, and I can only imagine what else went on at that time. It surely wasn’t very encouraging for John, either, and neither was his difficulty breathing that ensued. By midnight, Brandon Kowallis (an extremely highly-respected local caver) crawled near enough to John to verify that he had passed away. 

For days afterward, I reviewed the whole mission, wishing we’d have done this tiny detail differently or done that a little sooner. But it’s no use second guessing things. We did our best. Had one of our bolts failed? Dave and I discussed where to drill, trying to stay clear of cracks that might make the placement weaker. I asked him if the rock had felt solid the entire way in as he drilled his hole and he affirmed that it had. My placement also felt solid all the way in. I don’t think our bolts failed, as various factors and other rescuers’ opinions tell me it as a cam lower down, but the uncertainty plagued me for two or three days afterward."

— Shaun Roundy, Cave Rescue (Nutty Putty Site)

"Ryan tried to ready John for what was about to happen. 'OK, John. I need your help, I need you to make sure you are pushing with your hands. I’m going to push you this way.' In the pit, eight people worked as one. And John’s body lifted out of the crevice. With each tug, he moved a little farther. Then his feet hit the low ceiling. He screamed. Ryan yelled for the teams to lower him, to give him a rest. After about 20 minutes, Ryan raised his voice to yell. 'Haul!' he said. The rope moved. John inched upward. Ryan began to hope. Against the sheer impossibility of it all, John might get out. Then the world exploded in a blast of pain. Ryan screamed. He blacked out. When he came to, blood was everywhere. His jaw felt broken, and his eye was swelling. Under the pressure of John’s body and the crew’s pulling, the stone arch had shattered and the rope tied around it had broken, sending a heavy metal carabiner straight at Ryan’s face. But where was John? The trapped man had slid back into the hole and landed on his head again, but didn’t seem worse than before. Back at the pit, the eight people pulling the rope crashed to the ground when it went slack. 

Dave reluctantly crawled in. 'John, are you OK?' Dave asked. 'I’m going to die right here. I’m not going to come out of here, am I?' Then John fell silent, and his breathing slowed. While he waited for a drill to make a new pulley hole, Dave tried to wrap a rope around John’s waist. He lowered himself into the wider end of the crack, but it was too tight to work the rope all the way around John. He asked John to suck his stomach in, but he didn’t respond. Then it was Dave who was stuck. It took him 15 minutes to crawl out of the crack. When he got the drill, Dave stood in the crack next to John and pointed up, drilling madly, struggling in the damp, humid conditions. He tried to put the pulley in and found the hole was too small. He drilled a second hole and pushed the pulley in. He was exhausted. Fighting a black depression, he crawled back out of the hole, stopping every few minutes so he wouldn’t vomit."

— Lindsay Whitehurst (Salt Lake Tribune)

"John became trapped in the cave around 9 pm Tuesday night. He struggled for release and for life for 27 hours. Rescue workers estimated that an average amount of time for a person to have lasted under those conditions would have been 8 hours.

Later Wednesday night we received word from Emily that the rescue team had gotten John back from the “L” shaped drop off that held him prisoner for nearly 24 hours. In that position on a still tight but more level shelf, he was given some Gatorade and was revived a bit.  Ryan and his father, David Shurtz with 29 years of rescue experience, determined their best and last remaining option was for Ryan to attempt to slide past John then help push him while others pulled on the rope attached to his feet. 

Seconds before Ryan began to move into position the rope holding the carabineer to the wall of the cave snapped sending the carabineer into the joint of Ryan’s right eye and nose. He almost bit his tongue off. Blood was shooting everywhere. His face took a pounding on the cave wall. When we spoke with Ryan on Saturday he had a black eye, many stitches in his tongue, and had been eating through a straw. The abrasions and swelling looked like someone had smashed his face into a cave wall. 

With the tension off the rope, John helplessly slid back into where he had come from with legs and arms that wouldn’t respond to him anymore, hitting his head in the fall. John repeatedly called out, “Ryan, are you alright? He could tell Ryan was now in trouble and had been seriously hurt. Ryan assured him he would be alright. A few minutes later John slipped into unconsciousness and passed away. 

Had Ryan moved into position and been either at John’s side, or behind him to help push, they both would have likely been lost. For Ryan to have decided to take the risk was heroic. Ryan said the time they spent together changed his life. Ryan changed our life as well. He was there giving comfort, aid, and support to the man we all love. Ryan brought back the most precious words a wife, daughter, and family can hear, those of John's undying devotion and love. We will be forever grateful to Ryan for all that he did, and desired to accomplish.

Near the end John knew he wasn’t going to make it. He told Ryan to tell Emily how much he loved her and their family and that he would be there for the birth of their baby. Ryan said of course he would be there, because they would get him out. John insisted, 'no, but tell Emily I’ll be there when the baby is born!' We feel certain he will be. Perhaps they are already spending time together."

— Bishop and Momma Pete, John Jones in-laws (Cavechat Forum)

"I'm not sure of the next part, but it appears that when John's feet reached the pulley, the rope was retied around his knees to get a lower purchase. It was during this second attempt to lift him higher that the rigging broke and John slipped back down. That essentially ended the rescue because John was no longer able to assist. 

Much discussion and criticism has been made at what has been related as failure of the rock where the bolt was installed. I saw the live, real-time, tele-broadcast where the Utah County sheriff went to great pains to explain that no equipment failed; it was the result of the rock crumbling and the whole installation including the bolt came off the wall. This was repeated several times and quoted in the newspapers. If you go back early in the beginning of this thread you will even find that several people quote the newspapers about the rock failure, not an equipment failure. 

HOWEVER... About 3 months after the 'rescue' I attended the regular Salt Lake Grotto meeting and sat across a table from Ryan Shurtz, the rescuer who was with John during the failure and got hit hard in the face with a couple of carabiners. My question to Ryan was to have him describe how the rock crumbled without instantly releasing the bolt. His answer was surprising, "It never happened." He insisted that a piece of webbing broke. At first I was sure we were talking about two different things, but on the third go round, he was most adamant that the failure that dropped John back down the hole was a webbing failure. I couldn't argue because he is the one that got clobbered and should know. He maintained that the bolt is still solidly in the wall and the limestone around it is intact. I'm not going to speculate why the sheriff said what he did."

— Dale Green, Nutty Putty Discoverer (Cavechat Forum)

"Rescuers bolted a pulley system into the rock for more leverage. That moved Jones a little ways, until a bolt failed, according to Sgt. Spencer Cannon of the Utah County Sheriff's Office. 'A roof anchor gave way, causing him to fall back down into the area where he had been stuck previously,' Cannon said. It's not known if that setback contributed to Jones' death." 

— John Hollenhorst and Nicole Gonzales (KSL News)

"Back in the cave, each new pulley helped inch John out of his dark prison. The team pulled. They pulled again. But John’s feet hit the tunnel’s low ceiling. With his heart struggling to pump blood into his legs, the contact made him scream in pain. The rescuers came to a horrible realization: The angle of the tunnel meant they couldn’t bend John’s body backward without likely breaking his legs. In his weakened state, the shock could kill him. And the cams anchoring the pulleys were slipping from their uncertain places in the weak calcite." 

— Lindsay Whitehurst (Salt Lake Tribune)

"They had him to a level spot where he wasn't heading downhill with his head below his feet. During the course of that, they have a raising system to hold him in position, and one of the devices of that system failed, and Mr. Jones actually fell back to the area where he had been stuck for so long." 

— Sgt. Spencer Cannon, Utah County Sheriff's Office (KSL News)

"Nutty Putty is a kind of unusual cave. Most of the walls are a little soft (hence the name) and it would be difficult to get a strong and reliable anchor in them. There is certainly room for discussion about whether multiple anchors could have and should have been used, to prevent this accident."

— RockMonkey, Cave Rescue Relative (RME4x4 Forum)

What was the cause of Jones' death?

"John expired at some time between 9 pm and midnight. No autopsy was performed but his death is believed to be the consequence of being upside-down for over 24 hours. In this position, the lower organs compress the diaphragm and lungs, making each breath a physical chore. Also in this position, the lungs can fill with fluid, and John’s breath was heard to be very gurgly in the last couple of hours. Many other medical issues can also result from being inverted. It is amazing, and a testament to John’s will to live that he survived as long as he did."

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Incident Report) 

"At the top, Dave pulled Utah County sheriff’s Lt. Tom Hodgson aside. 'He’s dying right now. He has a heartbeat, but he’s had difficulty breathing before I got there. You can’t get someone down there before he dies.' Dave was spent. Instead, Brandon Kowallis, another member of Utah Cave Rescue who’d just arrived at Nutty Putty Cave, crawled into the tunnel to take his place. Down in the cave, though, John didn’t respond, Kowallis said. He was already unconscious. He never woke up. At 11:56 p.m. on Nov. 25, a paramedic crawled into the cave and pronounced John dead. Kowallis said he had heard John dying."

— Lindsay Whitehurst (Salt Lake Tribune) 

"He [Jones] would go in and out of these, delirious... Not moments of panic, he was having total visions, total hallucinations. Even if they were talking to him, he was lost in this. Because his body was dying. As the liquid was building up in his lungs, and he eventually just suffocated. Just a horrible way to go."

— Michael Leavitt, Nutty Putty Manager (RadioWest Interview) 

"The position he fell back into compressed his chest, and he could not breath (or could only take shallow breaths)."

— RockMonkey, Cave Rescue Relative (RME4x4 Forum)

"Nutty Putty was at best roughly 74 degrees... that's still cooler than your body's temperature ... I've spent hours in there (some of it surveying) and yeah you'd cool off once the sweat dries off your body, granted hypothermia would set in s-l-o-w-l-y in that particular cave but it'd still be faster than starvation and dehydration I would think."

— Ralph E. Powers, Caver (Cavechat Forum)

"Yup. Air can hold very little heat. So it doesn't take much to warm it up to body temperature. So at 74 degrees in the air, a light Tshirt and a saunter will keep you very comfortable. A long sleeve shirt and a saunter might even make you sweat. Rock and water, or various combinations like mud, can hold a lot more heat so you have to give and give before warming that rock. And given that the rock is attached to more rock which is attached to more rock, you can't give enough to completely warm it. Think of the feeling of 74 degree air which is very pleasant vs swimming in a 74 degree pool, which is very doable but on the cool side. 

Another way to think of it is to look at a corollary. Rock/water can hold more heat too. If you pull a frozen steak out of the freezer at 5:00 p.m., will you have a better chance of having it thawed by dinner time if you put it in 74 degree air or 74 degree water? Air will chill quickly to steak temperature and end up insulating it unless it is changed out (convection). Water will get colder too but not nearly as much. As it contains much more heat (or energy if you prefer) it will maintain a temperature gradiant for much longer and be able to thaw that steak faster. 

So standing in a 74 degree cave will seem warm since you'll warm the air your suit/clothes quickly and it will stay that way as you move around. Trapped in a crevice or tube, you have lots of surface area to transfer heat to the rock, you are surrounded by a substance that can absorb a LOT of heat and will not rise to body temperature, and you are held immobile so cannot regenerate the heat that you lose for long. A recipe for disaster all the way around."

— Roger Mortimer, Caver (Cavechat Forum)

"But Jones fell again less than 30 minutes after he was unstuck. He wasn't injured in the fall, but started struggling to breathe about two hours later. He later fell silent after relaying messages to his family, Hodgson said. Rescuers, who also have medical training, threaded a stethoscope in the crevice but could not find a pulse. He was pronounced dead at 11:57 p.m. He is thought to have died of the effects of the constant pressure on his body. 'I don't think we'll ever be certain, and I don't think that's important,' said Utah County Sheriff Jim Tracy." 

— Lindsay Whitehurst (Salt Lake Tribune) 

"Leavitt, who sent in his son, then 15, to the narrow passageway with the EKG, because the teenager’s size and the exhaustion of the other rescuers made him the best option. A friend ultimately took the device from Leavitt’s son to confirm Jones’ death."

— Emily Morgan (Deseret News) 

"The trapped man had trouble breathing for hours. Sometime before midnight his vital signs stopped, and rescuers exited the cave."

— John Hollenhorst and Nicole Gonzales (KSL News) 

"Also, there was a report that said they started an IV for him--also not true. Being head-down, the problem becomes fluids pooling in your head and causing aneurysms or whatever, and increasing the volume of body fluids would only hasten the inevitable problems. :( BTW, although they won't know for sure until an autopsy, they figure that's what killed him."

— I Lean (RME4x4 Forum)

Why was the body never recovered?

"Why didn't they retrieve the body after John died? Let me describe what some have told me. If the rigging had remained intact they would have pulled the body up to where it would be necessary to change the direction of force from near vertical to near horizontal. Because the feet were against the ceiling and John's long legs put his knees below the bend, it appeared that it would be necessary to break his legs at the knee, bending them forward in what might be called a super hyperextension of the knee. The situation never got to that point because he expired before they were able to pull him back up. 

As an aside, because the rope had been around his knees for several hours, cutting off all blood flow, the lower part of his legs had essentially died. If he could have been rescued, his lower legs would have to be immediately amputated to prevent the poisonous effects of gangrene. Upon his death, all of the rescuers were physically exhausted. Their mental state was not the best. The announcement was that retrieval would be made the next day, but that didn't happen. I don't know why, but can conjecture that it was realized that even in death, an easy retrieval was not possible."

— Dale Green, Nutty Putty Discoverer (Cavechat Forum)

"You can already crawl back through a small tube to the body and attach ropes to the multiplicity of webbing around the feet. But you can't pull the body out without pulling it in half. Think of a 200 pound body lying prostrate in a hole sloping at about 45 degrees or more, head down. The body virtually fills the entire hole. 

Think of the enormous friction present. There is more to moving the body than by just lifting 200 pounds. There is no room for the lone rescuer at the body to move except to back out or even to move his arms back down to his side. You have to tow the body over of a slight bend with a small ridge. The stomach is pushed all the way in by the bend and the lower ribcage ribs hang on the ridge at the bend making further movement impossible. You have a multiple pulley system that must exert hundreds of pounds of tension, but nothing gives, and it is absolutely impossible to reach in to elevate that part of the body that is at the bend. There is no room. Repeat, there is no room! You pull until the rock around the anchor point breaks away and the body slides back down. 

This is the information that was gleaned from the sheriff's department spokesman during several TV interviews and can be revised when the final report is issued. The man is now dead. The stench is terrible. Further action is not feasible. They only had a window of 27 hours before the man gave up the ghost, which was precious little time to get elaborate schemes into play. Conjecture is that the time with his head 4 feet lower than his feet was the cause of death. The rescuers are very knowledgeable about rock removal methods, but had no time. 

My understanding is that they had a small air-powered jackhammer all the way in there and did remove rock. I imagine the danger in removing rock in the steep incline where the body is, is rock rolling down and wedging against the body but I wasn't there and don't really know. There is no way you would be able to reach around your tool to prevent it in such a constricted environment. If the body is ever recovered, which is unlikely, it will be only bones."

— Dale Green, Nutty Putty Discoverer (Cavechat Forum)

"The powers in charge just announced that all efforts to remove the body from Nutty Putty Cave have been suspended and that the cave will be sealed from all access. Details are sketchy, but I personally can't believe that they are going to permanently leave him down there. I recommended in two interviews today with KSL-TV5 and the Salt Lake Tribune that only the area that causes all the rescues needs to be sealed and the rest left open. If the cave is made John Jones's grave, like it now sounds, I think that would be totally irresponsible, IMHO. Stay tuned for further information."

— Dale Green, Nutty Putty Discoverer (Cavechat Forum) 

"The Nutty Putty Cave is being singled out by the governing powers including government agencies, search and rescue agencies, and people who don't like caving. That is the reality and we all have to get over it. The normal governing agencies are scared to death of cave rescues. Why? Because they feel so helpless. They have all of this wonderful rescue ability, equipment, and training, yet very little of it works below ground. Most of the equipment is too big. Most of the normal rescue parties are too big. It is very helpless feeling standing above ground looking at over 100 other rescue personnel knowing that only two individuals can get anywhere near the trapped caver at a time. All the other man power can do very little."

— Michael Leavitt, Nutty Putty Manager (Open Letter to Cavers) 

"By the time he passed, and his death was pronounced, the caving resources were depleted. Once somebody dies, the body starts the decompose, rigor mortis, bloating, the hot temperatures in there. It swells in the passage and now do you wait until that passes? By the following morning when they were going to start the recovery again, they suspended it, 

The family had been told that the recovery would be much, much, too expensive, time consuming, risky, and really they needed to consider leaving his body in the cave, and that was very upsetting."

— Michael Leavitt, Cave Access Manager (Nightside Interview) 

"At first, they reacted with horror [Jones' family upon hearing his body couldn't be removed]. What did they mean, they couldn’t get his body out? But removing John after his death would be even harder than it was when he was alive. Now, he couldn’t help them. He couldn’t push himself up. He couldn’t twist through a rocky corkscrew that led out of the tunnel. So they agreed. They couldn’t put the rescuers in any more danger. The cave would be his final resting place. Crews would seal it with concrete at its main entrance, both to give the family peace and to prevent another injury." 

— Lindsay Whitehurst (Salt Lake Tribune)

"Yes there is a way, but when the decision was made it was felt that it would be difficult and that the remains might slide further down into the passage. Nobody in the room, that I could tell, could reasonably make a good determination given what we had all been through. In subsequent days, I heard a few proposals of ideas, but none of which could take place until more decomposition has been accomplished, and that meant more time. I had the current decomposition process explained to me and yes it was gross and I do not care to relay the details here."

— Michael Leavitt, Cave Access Manager (Nutty Putty Site) 

"After midnight, all rescuers were told to go home and spend time with their families as it was Thanksgiving Day, and were to await instructions for a possible body recovery over the weekend."

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Incident Report) 

"There were ways to get the body out, and time to implement them. It was a severe blow to the rescuers, not to mention the family, that we were not allowed to recover the body right away."

— Andy Armstrong, Cave Rescue (Cavechat Forum)