A terrifying virtual tour shows what the man who suffered the 'worst death imaginable' in Utah's Nutty Putty Cave in 2009 might have experienced.
Sixteen years ago, spelunker John Edward Jones ventured inside the cave with his brother Josh to an area dubbed the ‘birth canal’.
The 26-year-old medical student, along with three others, went off with Josh to explore a tight passageway with a sort of turnaround at the end. But because part of the cave was still unmapped, John went through the wrong entrance and became stuck in an upside-down position.
The 'L-shaped' trap was just 10 inches across and 18 inches high, and every time his chest would expand from breathing, it would further wedge him in.
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"I'm going to die right here. I'm not going to come out of here, am I?" were said to be his last words.
Efforts to pull him out of the cave via a pulley rope system ultimately failed and plunged John deeper back into the hole, where he died after suffering a cardiac arrest.
Rescuer Brandon Kowallis, who was said to be the 'last person to see Jones alive', has shared a virtual simulation of the tragic mission on his YouTube channel.
Starting at the entrance, Kowallis describes how the real entrance is funnel-shaped, narrow, and more vertical than the model.
After descending, explorers encounter a flat area followed by a tight squeeze that is often flooded with water.
Kowallis then guides viewers through tighter passages toward the area where Jones became trapped.
He notes that the back of the cave consists of narrow tunnels that require hands-and-knees crawling, with occasional small rooms where rescuers could rest.
The 'birth canal' passage is also shown in the clip, highlighting how the narrow passages and physical limitations made rescue operations nearly impossible.
He then comes to the entry point where Jones got trapped, where he claimed that one of the ways they'd tried to rescue him was by drilling part of the rock, but this wasn't successful.
Commenting on the terrifying simulation, one viewer said: "This cave is built like it didn't want to be explored in the first place."
"Such a horrible, unimaginable slow death. Why anybody would go crawling in dark tight holes is way beyond me," a second penned.
While a third added: "You're literally a superhuman. Telling so nonchalantly about those hellish tight places, remembering those events, and to mention actually being there back in the day. Chills."
In his 2024 blog post, Kowallis claimed that due to Jones's position, rescue was somewhat impossible.
"Even if we could get him into a horizontal position, he would then have to manoeuvre the most difficult sections of the passage he was trapped in," he said. "If he were conscious and had his full strength, there was a minute chance he could possibly do it. But even if that was the case, it looked grim. It was even difficult for me, weighing 125 pounds, to get myself out.
"At the bend where the restriction was, I had to creatively contort my body to slip through. So to get a 210-pound, unconscious person out seemed pretty much impossible."
The Nutty Putty Cave was sealed off with John's body inside and has been permanently closed to the public since 2009.
Anish Vij