This blog is about the “Nutty Putty Cave” incident. In which a 26 years old caver John Edward Jones
got stuck in a cave in 2009. His experience is an unforgettable lesson for all the caving lovers around the world that how dangerous caving can be and why one should follow safe caving practices.
John had a large family of 7 siblings. He had a good nature, delightful sense of humor, strong work ethic, genuine love for people and he was a great husband, father, son and brother. He had ‘an experience of caving but not recently’.
At the time of incident , his wife was pregnant with their second child.
On November 24, 2009 John and Josh {his brother} decided to revive their love for caving and picked Nutty Putty Cave as their next conquest. 9 more friends and their fellows had joined them. Everything went smooth for an hour or so. The party had explored the largest room in the cave called the BIG SLIDE. Soon, John and his brother decided to explore a narrow and challenging passageway eventually opens up into a larger room.
John went first” he wriggled forward sometime but didn’t see any larger area. He continued to inch forward, but the narrow passage didn’t come to an end, the squeeze made a sharp downward turn. John pressed forward perhaps noticing the tunnel got wider at the bottom, but it was too late. It is also said that john crawled into another passageway called Ed’s Push , just to next to where they were decided to explore.
To top things off, he had wriggled into a fissure that went nearly straight down, which made him unable to turn back on his own. The trap was just 10 by 18 inches. He was stuck in the tightest part of the opening. The size of the trap was of ‘an opening of a front-loading washing machine’. Where he could only wait and pray. 
His brother, however following him, also got stuck into the cave but luckily he came out anyhow and quickly called for help. The first person to arrive to help was Susan, was a local rescue volunteer reached their around midnight. Within the next few hours tens and tens of rescuers arrived and quickly brainstormed plan after plan to save John. They tried drilling away chunks of rock near John but the awkward position made drilling a slow and painful work. The situation was almost out of control, then.
SENSE THE SUSPENSE, WILL JOHN SURVIVE OR NOT?
John was trapped nearly upside down, only his feet were visible to the rescuers, and the ceiling above the feet hanged so low that rescuers couldn’t just pull him out as his feet would get in the way. Even though there was a large team of rescuers, volunteers, emergency services, helicopter but nothing worked. Now, John was having some difficulty in breathing and his heart was working with double speed to pump the blood in full body. The Nutty Putty Cave Incident shook them all.
The “incident” shook the nation. All media channels were broadcasting the live coverage. Everyone was praying for him Meanwhile, a ray of hope arose when rescuers finally began installing their pulling system and started pulling John out. One of the rescuers who was his closest ,saw him. John’s face was dirty, he was in immense pain, his eyes were red but still he was fighting. After 3 failed attempts, the team was about to take him out in 4th attempt but, then suddenly something happened, entire team fell backward. One, who saw John recently also fainted when he came into senses again, he found that the stone shattered where the rope was around. Now, he saw nothing but the dust. It was raining heavily outside which made the situation worsen. Tragically, Doctors declared John “dead“.
A total of “137” rescuers worked hard for “27″ hours to save John but, had to leave the tragic site with empty hand and heavy hearts. It was not even possible to take his body out so, the cave was declared as ‘the final resting place for John’.
After a week, Government permanently closed Nutty Putty Cave and a plaque was inserted in the memory of “John Edward Jones”.
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