Nutty Putty Cave: Why The Cave Is Known For Tragic Stories

Nutty Putty Cave is a hydrothermal cave located west of Utah Lake in Utah County, Utah, United States. 

The cave is considered the death cave because of its various incidents from 2004 to 2009. The cave was discovered in 1990 by one adventurous person and has been closed to the public since 2009.

Significance & Exploration Of Cave

According to reports, Dale Green is a person who discovered the cave in 1960. It comes under Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration and is managed by the Utah Timpanogos Grotto.

The name of the cave was given because of the soft, brown, putty-like texture of the clay found in many of Green’s tunnels. 

It has 1,400 feet (430m) of chutes and tunnels and was once accessible through a shallow surface hole, and one could be entered from the opening to explore the new adventure.

Many people and news channels covered the dangerous cave and the tragic cases involved with it, as per the report. Prior to 2009, there were separate rescues of cavers and Boy Scouts who were tragically trapped inside the cave’s narrow twists, bends, and crawls.

In 2006, an effort was made to explore the cave and know its significance, and for this, it severely limited the number of tourists allowed inside.

The cave was projected to get over 5,000 visitors per year, with many individual people used to entering the cave at night and neglecting to take necessary safety procedures after coming out of it. 

The popularity of the cave was because of its excessive smoothing of the rock inside the cave, to the point where it was projected that a fatality would occur in one of the cave’s more notable features, a 45-degree room known as “The Big Slide.” 

A gate was constructed on May 24, 2006, and the cave was temporarily blocked for tragic reasons. 

However, to guarantee safety, precautions were maintained,  and to provide safety, adequate management was formed in early 2009, and an application process was developed. 

After taking and implementing precautions, the cave reopened to the public on May 18, 2009. 

The Tragic Death Incident Of John Edward, Occurred In Cave

John Edward Jones was a man of adventure and exploring suspicious places, and he had a great time spelunking with this family. 

According to the report, he was used to exploring adventurous places since his childhood; when he and his brother, Josh, were kids, their father would frequently take them on caving adventures in Utah. 

The brothers lived their childhood and grew to appreciate the deep depths’ and learn the depth of nature.

On the evening of November 24, 2009, a few days before Thanksgiving, John Edward Jones entered Nutty Putty Cave around 8 p.m. local time. 

When he entered the cave, he was 26, and Josh, 23, mutually decided to explore Nutty Putty Cave with nine other friends and family members during the holidays.

John was married at age 26, and he had one daughter. Along with his married life, he was studying medicine in Virginia.

He had returned home to Utah to celebrate the holidays with his family and decided to do some adventurous tours along with the family, but things didn’t go as planned. 

John hadn’t been in a cave for years. And he wasn’t the little youngster he used to be; John was standing at the height of six feet, while his weight was 200 pounds or 90kg.

After about an hour of exploring the caves and finding some adventurous places, John chose to visit the Nutty Putty Cave feature known as the Birth Canal, a narrow hole that spelunkers must cautiously crawl through if they dare.

He reached what he assumed was the Birth Canal and crept from the entrance of the cave, and inserted his head first from the tight passage, using his hips, stomach, and fingers to propel himself forward. 

But at the very next moment, he understood that he had made a huge mistake and realized he was nearly stuck and had little room to turn around. 

The fact is that John couldn’t even return back swiftly out the way he had come, and at that time, he had one choice only to go forward.

To turn around himself and move backward, John tried to expel the air in his lungs so that he could squeeze through a space that was just 10 inches across and 18 inches high, roughly the size of a clothes dryer opening.

But unfortunately, when John inhaled again, and his chest inflated out again, he became permanently stuck.

John Death In A Cave

After remaining for so long in the cave and with no possibility of rescue, his heart has been strained for hours due to his downward posture. He died of cardiac arrest shortly before midnight on November 25, 2009. 

Undoubtedly, rescuers had tried for 27 hours and more than 27 hours to save John, but destiny had written something else for him.

More importantly, he died of cardiac rest; despite this terrible news, his family thanked the rescuers for their assistance due to their consistent and hard work to rescue him as soon as possible, but to no avail.

A week after John’s death, officials permanently closed Nutty Putty Cave. They never recovered his body because of fear of more deaths from such an operation, and his body was still inside the cave, which would have decomposed completely. 

Besides John, Two Boys Lost Their Lives 

Prior to the death of John, two Boy Scouts nearly died in separate events in the same location of Nutty Putty Cave, whereas John became trapped in 2009, while the boy scouts became trapped in 2004 and died.

 In one of the incidents, rescuers used a complex network of pulleys to liberate a 16-year-old Scout who weighed 140 pounds and stood 5’7″ tall, who was significantly smaller than John.

Soon after the occurrence of the Boy Scouts’ death, officials shuttered Nutty Putty Cave temporarily. But, when John and his family arrived to spend some holiday in Utah, he visited the cave. It was just opened for John, as he had experienced many other caves since childhood and was considered adventurous like his father.

The Last Descent Film Was Released On Nutty Putty Cave

After the occurrence of many deaths in Nutty Putty Cave, the cave was permanently closed, and it was considered the death cave.

Since then, after its permanent closing, a film was created about the tragedy of John Edward, which was titled ‘The Last Descent.’

The film was released on September 16, 2016, and was seen worldwide and liked by everyone. The fact is that, after releasing the film, many people became aware of the tragedy that happened in the Nutty Putty.

At present, people come to see the adventurous cave but never dare to go into it, but it is officially and permanently closed.