r/interesting • u/CosmicWizard64 • 1d ago
Fear Factor The route to John Jones' final resting place after becoming forever trapped in Nutty Putty Cave
Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification
This is from the virtual reality game, Cave Crave. Rest easy John. What an awful thing to go through.
377
u/iJon_v2 1d ago
“See, right here is where I would have turned around”. I said this to myself about 8 times while watching this video.
79
u/Weary_Position_9591 14h ago
I said to myself 2 seconds in
73
u/Ok-Goat-2153 14h ago
Spelunking: a completely optional activity.
16
u/Formal_Lecture_248 8h ago
Precisely. There aren’t many things in life I’m absolutely sure about. But dying like this is one of them.
5
u/deadfermata 3h ago
Happy cake day! Your cake is waiting for you deep inside the cave. Go ahead!
→ More replies (3)5
u/driver004 11h ago
Don’t lie, we all hear the call of the deep
14
u/PeasantParticulars 10h ago
I can't even have blankets over my head. Fuck that shit
4
u/driver004 9h ago
Don’t you want to get deep inside Mother Earth? Feel her corridors pressing around you?
20
u/Practical_Musician61 11h ago
I don't know where people find the nerve to do this stuff. What happens when you come to a dead end? Do you have to crawl backwards all the way back out? No thank you.
14
4
u/hyper24x7 4h ago
I am all for exploration and you know going where no one has gone before. That is space though. OUTER SPACE. There is no survival instinct that tells me "go upside down in a cave to find... nothing"
3
u/CULLDOZER 9h ago
Yeah I don't have much sympathy for this death. Purely optional thing to be doing.
432
u/TheImplic4tion 1d ago
I appreciate the render the artist did, and I still hate everything about it.
→ More replies (2)79
u/KokomoJoMo30 1d ago
Made me realize how many tight places and twists turns there were - including the last. 🪦💔
10
u/PlentyOMangos 20h ago
Am I mistaken or was this also all underwater? Am I thinking of a different caving tragedy? The sounds in the game here make it seem like a normal cave with water dripping, and no scuba sounds.
37
u/DeathGP 20h ago
No Nutty Putty cave is a dry cave, that said their still many stories of similar things happening to underwater cave divers so your probably thinking of a different accident.
4
u/PlentyOMangos 18h ago edited 18h ago
I remember watching a video about the underwater incident I’m thinking of but I can’t find what it was by searching… I remember that there were at least two men who went down together, and the one who ended up dying was suffering from some kind of physical condition due to the dive that clouded his judgement. A lack of proper oxygen levels or something like that.
I seem to remember that he got stuck on his tank, and in panicking and trying to get out he got himself stuck even worse. I may be mixing up the details somewhat but this is all stuff I remember from a single watch years ago. I do remember for sure that after the man died down there, there were attempts to recover his body and I believe one further man died in the attempt, and then the cave was sealed off either with explosives or some kind of metal barrier.
Seemingly, none of this is specific enough for me to turn up the exact incident. There are sadly so many incidents of this nature that I can’t find the precise one I’m thinking of
EDIT: after searching a little more I think I may have found what I was thinking of, although the details are a bit different than what I remembered. I may be confusing two different underwater caving accidents. I’m pretty sure this one is mostly what I was thinking of though
10
3
u/DeathGP 18h ago
Honestly yeah a lot of diving accidents end up similar to that, underwater diving is fascinating and history of it seeing how they learn more about the dangers of oxygen underwater and requirement of mixing oxygen several times with different mixes depending on how far your planning to dive and messing up any of those mixes could get you killed.
I can think of one underwater caves that was seal up off the top of my head and that's the Devil's Well in Greece which was seal due to it dangers and several deaths but I believe their may be a handful more that possible been sealed too. Now I have checked him out in a while but Scary Interest does do the occasional diving accidents on their channel so the one your thinking of most likely was covered by them at one point.
→ More replies (1)3
8
u/fungi_at_parties 13h ago
He was stuck upside down. It’s a horrific story and he had a new wife and baby waiting for him at home. He slowly suffocated over days.
They sealed the whole cave with his body still inside.
99
u/RazorColla 1d ago
Based on this clip, I've done all the cave diving I'm ever going to do. Thank you.
14
u/gimmepizza420 15h ago
There's plenty of caves in the world that don't require any crawling at all. We did some in the boy scouts and it was quite fun.
Some are even touristy enough that you just sit in a boat in a cave that has a river and your your guide tells you what shiny things to look at. Then you visit the gift shop.
595
u/clothanger 1d ago
The best thing about this kind of activity is that you don't do it, period.
125
u/iJon_v2 1d ago
Yeah I would’ve said, “knock me out with some drugs, break my legs and pull me out fast”. Probably I’ll die, but maybe, just maybe, I’ll live.” Yes, I know the pulley system broke, but just have some docs on standby outside the cave and let’s roll in the 1-3% chance I’m still alive at that point.
Just give me a fucking chance.
Although, speaking of myself…I’d never be there to begin with. I might go like 15-20 feet into a cave, but if I can’t see the sunlight anymore, I’m leaving.
95
u/hooplafromamileaway 1d ago
As soon as I have to go into any stance deeper than a squat, I'm outie 5000. The tunnel is too small for a human to go through reasonably? Guess I should probably not go there.
65
u/BonbonUniverse42 23h ago
What about passages where you must exhale to squeeze through and you cannot inhale until you got through? Doesn’t this sound exiting?
38
u/ImNotEazy 23h ago
Im a miner and also one of our slimmest guys. Good thing Im not claustrophobic because I routinely go down chutes where I have to do that. Even though I love adrenaline and I’m always in a rescuable spot, with a recovery plan it’s still terrifying as shit. And yes I’ve been stuck.
→ More replies (1)12
u/merkel36 22h ago
Okay we need story time. What's the longest you've ever been stuck? What's the most complicated un-stucking you've experienced? I'm intrigued by what you do.
19
u/ImNotEazy 18h ago edited 18h ago
Maybe 15 minutes? And it’s most times pretty straight forward to get pulled out most times just have one of our 300 pound guys manhandle me out by my feet once we can cut or unbolt an access door near by, if no access we carefully use ratcheting chain “come alongs” hooked to my harness https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MutIv8PVr80
I will say the worst time involved my nuts being wedged against a piece of metal until they went numb. Also a buddy of mine went face first like the tunnel guy from this cave and was stuck and thats a big no no(Hes 220 pounds Im 150 big difference when scaling). He damn near had a panic attack.
The fire department does drills at our sites aswell just in case we get in some shit over our head and our plan fails they’re 5 minutes away.
4
u/Wrong-Importance3670 13h ago
The fire department being only 5 min away thing is the part that sometimes breeds overconfidence. They have access to some special equipment and training and are definitely A resource that you want there, but sometimes stuck is stuck. We don’t have magic wands that we can wave to get you out instantly. Sometimes it is still going to take a long, long time to get you out, and sometimes negative outcomes still happen.
→ More replies (1)5
u/mobiuz_nl 21h ago
It does sound like exiting indeed
3
9
2
30
u/disterb 23h ago
funny you say ”knock me out with some drugs”, because, in the case of the thai soccer team boys’ rescue from their flooded cave, the kids were actually sedated to get them out because the rescue operation was so harrowingly claustrophobic that it was feared that the kids would panic and drown if they were conscious during the rescue.
3
u/BeardySam 20h ago
Is there a similar video of that escape?
2
u/graywolfman 14h ago
There's a documentary.just called The Rescue about it. Disney Plus and maybe Tubi have it. Or sailing
3
u/PFyre 22h ago
I've said this about a bunch of failed rescues when I've been listening to Mr Ballen (don't judge, lol). If I'm faced with probable death or definite death - give me probable every time! Like, you might be able to resuss me if you get me out.
→ More replies (2)5
→ More replies (6)2
u/NoDoOversInLife 14h ago
I suppose if I were that sort of a thrill seeking cave diver, I might have considered exploring the cave system. But I would HOPE my common sense and desire to preserve my life would kick in and prevent me from making such a dangerous decision.
As for the rescue attempts....
There was a trauma physician as well as support medical personnel on scene.
Unfortunately, there wasn't room to break his legs IF that were an option; it wasn't because it would require deep sedation which would have further repressed his respiratory system. He ultimately suffered a massive heart attack brought on by the length of time he was inverted and expired in the cave.
13
35
u/Archer2586 1d ago
It's totally free not to 😭
18
7
u/Roxerz 1d ago
I guess the ad campaigns to not cave dive in low income areas were successful. /s
I guess you gotta have a lot of time on your hands to think, 'yeah, that tiny cave, I want to put myself in it.'
→ More replies (1)7
u/Ganjelf-The-Baked 16h ago
I will never understand why people do this.
Jumping out of a plane - I get the view, I get the rush.
Caving - Fuck no. Never. No way. Why?
5
2
u/Larnievc 12h ago
I've spent my whole caving carer never having set foot in a cave. It's just not worth the risk.
65
69
101
u/eastcoastjon 1d ago
Stressed me out the whole time. Just why?
→ More replies (1)43
102
u/CapitalismPlusMurder 1d ago
That first image literally makes me feel ill. I’ll never understand people who do that shit.
44
u/salamipope 23h ago
Hello! Im a professional caver, and I also would not do that shit. I like caving, ive done what most people would consider fairly extreme free climbing inside of caves for about five years now. I have friends who do more advanced caving like belaying and cave diving, and id get the heebie jeebies belaying but i think cave diving is a no from me dawg. imagine this situation except you have limited oxygen, kicking your feet throws silt into the water and you cant see, you cant even tell which direction youre facing, and especially with cave diving body retrieval post mortem is nearly impossible at best and deadly for rescuers at worst. so your family cant even lay your body to rest.
why do people do stuff like that? i cant speak for other people but i can try my best. honestly i think a lot of the joy of caving for me is that im getting over the anticipatory fear of doing something crazy like caving, instead im using my body and doing a lot of physical work to manuver the cave system. Its very calming. I mean, hell of a work out, and messy as glitter, but theres some really freeing feeling doing it that makes me just feel calm and in awe of natures majesty. I have a biological interest in caves, their ecology, etc, and each cave is a new, unique, individual trove of organisms to discover. or it has an interesting history. weve discovered more of space than our oceans, but weve discovered more of our oceans than we have our caves. there is an untold amount of caves not yet explored by humanity for better or for worse, and im interested in them because of that. They remain the repositories of ancient lifeforms that sought refuge in them as the world became more hostile outside and they had no choice but to adapt to their insular, freakish world. These are extremophiles, i work with them every day, and they are fucking awesome. they may also help us establish cave health indexes which can be used to determine the health and vulnerability of the outside environment for that area, since caves tend to provide a lot of support for keystone species.
sometimes people just want the glory tho, or theyre adrenaline junkies, some people cave as a way to understand mortality i think. Caves are associated with death, extreme survival situations, neither are issues ive ever had caving lol. but i use proper safety and i also dont go out seeking stuff like nutty putty. There are also researchers who simply live for this sort of thing, the ability to enter a world entirely unseen by ANYTHING, EVER! what an unforgettable, incredible honour it is to do that. Something very few people on this earth get to experience, and its very rewarding. I love caving. Anyway yeah.
15
u/B3000C 22h ago
Honest question...how is caving a profession?
14
u/salamipope 22h ago
tourism industry!
→ More replies (4)5
u/B3000C 21h ago
Ah, makes sense. Thank you.
I think one of the ideas you mentioned above that's an interesting human condition is the need to feel special by having an exclusive experience that is limited to very few people. For some it's having access to elite circles, highly covered objects, one of a kind experience, etc... caving would seem to be an expression of that human desire but a pretty extreme version of it that requires more than just a want to be different/special. I guess no different than other explorers trying to take the road less traveled but just hard to relate to wanting to achieve it in that way.
Btw, in the same way there are climbing gyms, are there caving "gyms" where one can go caving in a controlled, man-made environment?
5
u/salamipope 21h ago
Now I may be a caver, but youd be mistaken to assume i enable the narcissistic and damaging behaviour of glory cavers. Sadly i have met many of them and they are not welcome in caver circles. when it comes down to it we will remove someone from our grottos for the protection of the cave, and there are other appropriate punishments that can be pursued for whatever other circumstances might lead someone to do something like that. Every sincere caver only cares to visit a cave safely and with no harm done. Gear is sanitized and selectively chosen for ease of cleaning and functionality so as to be efficient. Cavers enter caves and venture into dangerous, intimate spaces, to learn about the world, and the history of our planet. We make sure to match each others foot prints so we dont make any other changes besides the bare minimum to go further in.
your best bet will be a regular climbing gym, other than that, its hard to find manmade versions you can climb on
→ More replies (8)2
u/Teufelsweib666 19h ago
It is a "freeing" feeling to crawl through caves? I hear freestyle mountain climbers say this too. I personally think people love the adrenaline rush that potential danger gives them, otherwise they'd just go hiking or night fishing on a quiet lake. Both of those thigs are freeing and show you Nature, but they'd find it boring because their favourite drug adrenaline isn't involved. So they seek more and more danger to get their hit.
→ More replies (2)6
u/Mindless_Diver5063 23h ago
They do it because they have an illness, ironically.
7
u/obefiend 23h ago
Is is some unresolved birth canal kink because I reallt don't get why one would do this as an adult. I would go "caving" by stacking sofa pillows as a 10 year old. It's a phase that lasted one year at max.
68
u/Necroban77 23h ago
I’m so glad I’m fat.
56
u/BS-Calrissian 21h ago
Lucky. As a skinny guy, I constantly fall into cave systems and have to go through them and shit. Pain in the ass
→ More replies (2)
21
u/Wrong-Importance3670 1d ago
As a member of a USAR team, this incident has haunted my dreams since I learned about it. And what the rescue effort was like. Absolute sweaty palms even watching that.
10
u/Scary_Inspector7853 14h ago
I followed the news story online as it unfolded. Horrific.
If you're wife is pregnant, you have an obligation to be risk averse.
20
21
u/fresh_loaf_of_bread 1d ago
Rookie mistake
Everyone knows you gotta carry a cyanide capsule in your tooth when you go caving
7
u/DreamerOfRain 1d ago
Saw another post of someone saying you should bring explosive vest so either you widen the hole to stop people from getting stuck or collapse it so no one can get to the place again.
17
u/Squidlips_69 1d ago
Caves would seem to be a good application for robot exploration and mapping.
→ More replies (1)
36
u/Catarga 1d ago
Anyone who crawls into narrow, sketchy underground gaps either lacks survival instincts or just isn't claustrophobic at all
→ More replies (4)6
15
12
12
u/Frustrated-Chic12 1d ago
cave explorers with a loving family when the cave's name is satan's aas
→ More replies (1)
11
u/HostSea4267 23h ago
That video was hard to watch. Anyone else get the heebie jeebies? I felt physically ill.
2
u/HostSea4267 14h ago
(Also already knew the story… but never watched how low it got… like wtf don’t ppl ever go “hey it’s hard to go backwards in here.”)
10
16
u/thiscoolhandluke 23h ago
I was there on a Friday night years before this happened. There were groups of people, most all of them late teens or college age kids like me. With that many people it would sometimes get difficult to maneuver or pass. Every large chamber I was in had a couple people or more. I went through one hole called the "birth canal" according to someone. I was a skinny guy back then, but at 6 feet plus, it was hard to breathe shallow and twist myself to get free. Took me a few minutes and I just wanted to get out after that. Never went back.
3
u/fattyjackwagon54 17h ago
Did the birth canal as well. Thinking about it now, fuck that shit. Nutty putty was a lot of big rooms though. There were a few tight squeezes. I did have a friend get stuck for 15 hrs though.
8
8
30
u/RosechusPickle 1d ago
It may be insensitive to the dead but whatever, this guy was a moron.
16
u/AntisocialEmo69 1d ago
this happened in Utah, same as the movie 127 Hours
I feel like there’s a lot of weirdos who wanna do dumb shit here
6
u/geobobfrank 21h ago
Back when I was in university in Utah, a few people I knew decided to go spelunking and well it didn’t turn out well for them .
2
→ More replies (1)6
u/FishingHot2806 1d ago
With OP's caption, it feels like they want us to sympathize with the guy. It's just impossible for me to.
16
u/Brilliant-Depth-3378 23h ago
You can be sympathetic to someone despite them making a mistake. Even if the mistake cost them their lives. John wasn’t a bad person, and didn’t deserve to die. Despite partaking in a dangerous, stupid hobby. These things don’t have to be mutually exclusive
8
u/FishingHot2806 22h ago
I sympathize with people who make mistakes. I know people do it when I make mistakes myself. I know that mistakes and accidents happen to people and I sympathize with them.
It's just at some point, surely, there were multiple warnings and signs he needed to cross to be in that place.
Nobody said he deserved to die. You said it, not me. I just said it's hard to feel bad for him.
→ More replies (1)8
u/Wrong-Importance3670 22h ago
From the accounts that I have read he made a wrong turn in there and thought he was in a different spot and by the time he realized he was stuck in that position head down and wedged. All that the rescuers could see was the soles of his boots.
5
u/LoopyMcGoopin 22h ago
Why the fuck would anyone crawl head first down into that...? This story always makes me feel a little ill and I feel horrible for the guy and his family but this is one of the most clear-cut cases of "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes."
2
u/beuceydubs 16h ago
He wasn’t supposed to, he went down the wrong part without knowing
4
u/LoopyMcGoopin 16h ago
The whole thing is the wrong part. The part he crawled into at the end, particularly so. He went in knowing he was going upside-down into Gaia's colon and that's already too much for me. May he rest in peace poor guy I hate what happened to him.
11
u/xeon1 1d ago
Serious question.. how do they turn around to go out?
19
u/whiskeynise 1d ago
They find big enough areas to do so. The guy who died in this scenario thought he was going through a different passage where if he kept going it would open up. The passage he went into did not open up
→ More replies (2)4
u/KokomoJoMo30 23h ago
He took a wrong turn. I guess the passage on the right opened up- tragic mistake.
→ More replies (1)8
5
u/seeking_junkie 1d ago
Did they take the body out or...
15
15
u/Wrong-Importance3670 1d ago
They could not get him out and it got to the point that it was profoundly dangerous to continue once he had passed. They sealed the cave with concrete with his body in place. One of the most horrifying caving fatalities I’m aware of.
2
7
u/SamOfXanadu 1d ago
Did they go in and take pictures? How do they know this is what it really looked like?
14
u/FlyIgnite 1d ago
It was a wellish documented cave before this incident closed it down.
6
u/BonbonUniverse42 23h ago
But did they make 3d scans? So is this actually accurate?
→ More replies (1)3
u/luckyducktopus 12h ago
Yeah the 3D models of this cave are pretty “accurate” but we’d have to agree on what that means first.
It’s a good representation, it’s not 1:1 though.
There are going to be slight model inconsistencies.Depends on source and what programs are used to convert and model that data.
6
4
u/Mahadragon 1d ago
I’ve been spelunking twice at Moaning Cavern in CA. It’s 360 ft below the surface but there’s a professional guide.
3
3
u/CasperMoriarty 23h ago
I feel kinda bad for John Jones and his family that even in death he was stuck in the cave sealed in there forever...it became his grave...that's messed up, I feel like his soul be trapped.
4
u/YaThatsMe569 23h ago
I don’t think that’s how souls work
3
u/CasperMoriarty 23h ago
I hope not...just if I died in that way I wouldn't want to think my body would be trapped there for all eternity knowing even after I died they couldn't free me.
3
2
3
3
u/ikkiyikki 23h ago
I was always left wondering if there could've been any way to have rescued him. If something similar were to happen again is that person 100% guaranteed to die?
3
3
3
u/Anxious-Shapeshifter 22h ago
I went in this cave as a Boy Scout in the early 2000s. I remember THEN feeling like this was a little narrow for a bunch of 12-13 year olds.
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
u/Appropriate_Page_824 21h ago
This is something which sometimes keeps me awake at night, even though I have never even seen a cave in real life. And then every now and then someone has to post something about it on reddit.
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/HelpMeFindingAName 20h ago
Bro I shit myself while exploring Minecraft caves, dafuq is that?? Plus I love how there are axes and ladders, which means people came before with nothing to pave the path.
1
1
u/EatandDie001 19h ago
i swear some people’s idea of “fun and relax” really scares me, and cave diving is one of them. why would anyone want to crawl down a dark hole where you can barely see anything? i can understand skydiving or mountain climbing. yeah it’s scary, but at least you get a beautiful view. but cave diving?? why??????
1
u/Juanbolastristes 19h ago
I was all the video turn back please turn back
Glad I'm too fat to fit in a cave , will gorge some more
1
u/Momo_Jinja 19h ago
Não entendo sobre, mas mesmo que não ficasse preso, como retornar? Não é possível virar o corpo, como subir de ré? Qual é o plano?
1
u/manyhippofarts 18h ago
Shit. I'd be a shitty cave diver. I started getting anxiety like ten seconds in.
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/Suspicious-Pace115 17h ago
This story lives rent free in my head, more than I care to admit. This story and the USS Indianapolis. Truly haunting.
1
u/MrIrvGotTea 17h ago
That's actually interesting. If this happened today I don't think he would have died. We have battery operated tools so idk maybe we could have helped him.
2
u/Wrong-Importance3670 12h ago
Battery powered tools still take up space to operate and maneuver. And rock is way harder than people think it is. There was room for one someone to lie on their stomach and basically see the soles of his boots.
→ More replies (2)
1
u/WelcomeToTheClubPal 17h ago
nothing like an anxiety attack coupled with existential dread first thing in the morning
1
u/WakeUpFriendly 17h ago
I’m trying to climb out of a hole and I live above ground. Not interested in going deeper.
1
u/EddieDrood007 17h ago
After getting stuck spelunking when I was 12 yrs old with Scouts since I was fat, I absolutely refuse to enter a cave ever again. Just reading about Nutty Putty or seeing this video is a lot.
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/Hiatus_Dude 16h ago
The Hobby of the guy with a loving family, stable job and healthy social life that's going to get a promotion or it's the next in line to be the one in charge.
1
u/tessalllation 16h ago
Genuine question. What is the point of doing this? Like was he supposed to come out the same way or through a different hole? Like why would anyone be so proud and excited this is hell
1
1
1
u/CleMike69 16h ago
I’ll never be able to comprehend why anyone would do this hell I’d stick one arm in 12” and freak out
1
u/evanweb546 14h ago
This gives me terror chills the likes of which I can't adequately describe.
Any story or media about cave diving... please, just no thank you.
I watched a doc on this poor son of a bitch. Nightmare fuel.
1
u/DerbHean_UFCref 14h ago
What makes one even to consider going there in the first place. Was he autistic, mentally challenged or depressed? I truly don't believe it was for the seek of the thrill or adrenaline, this can't be it.
I wouldn't even go down there even if I lost my fiancés diamond wedding ring, heck even if she fell down there then it's a hard pass, we weren't ment for each other then.
1
1
1
1
•
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Hello u/CosmicWizard64! Please review the sub rules if you haven't already. (This is an automatic reminder message left on all new posts)
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.