The body of a cave diver who suffered what was described as "the worst death imaginable" is still entombed over a decade later. On November 24, 2009, medical student and dad-of-one John Edward Jones went on a spelunking trip with friends and family in the Nutty Putty Cave in Utah and never came out. Located around 55 miles away from Salt Lake City, Nutty Putty Cave is known for its tight, winding passages which open up into large caverns, and was generally thought of as a good cave for beginner cave explorers. Jones and his brother were both experienced cave divers, and shortly after arriving, the group split off into two - with the children and less-experienced adults exploring easier sections of the cave while the seasoned spelunkers went deeper. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/RockyMtnCaving/status/1451336751545348098]] While exploring the cavern’s depths with his brother Josh, John decided to look for a narrow tunnel which spelunkers had dubbed the 'birth canal', but ended up taking a wrong turn and ending up in a different area of the cave. Wriggling through a tiny crack in the cave wall, John kept squeezing himself deeper into the crevice in the belief it would soon open up into a large cavern. But as he was in the wrong part of the cave, his calculations were incorrect and he soon found himself stuck. Unable to reverse, his only option was to keep moving forward, and John was forced to suck in his stomach so much to crawl through a particularly narrow passage that he became lodged inside the gap when he released his breath. [[youtubewidget||https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xab1kNr9cM]] The gap he was trying to squeeze through was just 10 inches across and 18 inches high - around the size of a front-loading dryer. John called out to his brother for help upon realizing he was stuck, but as his brother tried to pull him out by the legs he ended up slipped further into the cave and became stuck upside down, with his hands pinned under his chest and unable to move. Unable to free his brother alone, Josh instead had to travel back up through 400ft of cave to call for help, with the first rescuer arriving at around 12:30AM on November 25, over three hours after John had first gotten stuck in the cave. The first rescuer to arrive was Susie Motola, and when she reached the part of the cave where John had become trapped all she could see of him was his shoes. "Hi Susie, thanks for coming," John said, per <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/07/09/nutty-putty-i-really/">the Salt Lake Tribute</a>, "but I really, really want to get out." Over the next 24 hours, Susie and a team of up to 100 people worked tirelessly to save John, a task made worse by the fact that John was in "absolutely the worst spot in the cave". "It's very narrow, very awkward, and it's difficult to get rescuers down there," rescuer Shawn Roundy told the media at the time. "It's a really tight spot, but we've been able to get around him. We were able to hold his hand at some point." After several failed attempts and around 19 hours after he first got stuck, the team eventually devised a complex pulley system which would pull John out of the cave, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xab1kNr9cM">ABC News</a> reported at the time. The plan almost worked, and John was even able to get himself partially free- but tragedy struck when the pulley system broke at the last minute and sent John plunging right back to square one. At this point, John started panicking and his body was starting to break down from the extreme stress and pressure it was being put under. Rescuers put his wife Emily back on the phone to calm his nerves and he promised his wife he would get out to be there for her and their children. Stuck upside down and struggling to breathe - after being trapped for over 25 hours - John started to become unresponsive. A doctor was eventually able to reach him and pronounced the cave diver dead of cardiac arrest and suffocation on November 25. Emily, still outside, refused to leave her husband's body trapped inside the cave, and the local Sheriff assured her they would recover it. But even following his death it was deemed too dangerous to attempt to recover his body, and the entrance to the passage he was trapped in was collapsed with controlled explosives. Eventually, the entire cave was sealed off with concrete with his body still inside, and the entire place now exists as a memorial to John Edward Jones. John's death was been described <a href="https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/dad-suffers-worst-death-imaginable-26651397" target="_blank" rel="noopener">in the press</a> as "the worst death imaginable". In a ray of good news, Emily has since gone on to find love and remarry. However, she's <a href="https://vt.co/lifestyle/woman-whose-husband-died-the-worst-death-imaginable-still-cruelly-trolled-13-years-later">recently opened up</a> about how trolls still cruelly taunt her on social media. <h6>Featured image credit: Photocosma / Alamy</h6>

Body of man who died 'the worst death imaginable' still stuck in rock over a decade later

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