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)