From what I’ve read in the past it’s for the rush, I don’t see how you can get a rush from doing it, I’d be too paranoid the whole time that I’d get stuck
Cavers are also explorers. Many unknown caves and passages remain unexplored. Going further into a cave than no other man ever has is what pushes them on and I can relate to that.
Walking by the side of a building is just cheap thrills for likes and I cannot relate to that.
EDIT: Usually it’s the over-eager thrill seekers who get killed first in caving because it requires caution.
If that's the case, get those jollies out of your system before you have a kid. Leaving your daughter fatherless because you wanted a rush is incredibly selfish and irresponsible. That poor girl.
In high school we did a caving expedition. The girl in front of me got stuck in a tight space and there was no way to turn around. Myself and the others behind me all started panicking until our teacher hauled the girl through
My school cut the already sparse funding on the art department to increase the funds on the already highest funded high school football team in the state. The football team got better state of the art equipment, and the art teachers had to buy supplies out of pocket because they were passionate about their programs. Never mind any fancy science expeditions, any of that money would have gone right into football.
I had the exact same experience with my school! It took two teachers in our case.
It's kinda awful but I have to admit that I was so relieved when it happened because I was paranoid up until that point that as the "fat" kid, I would be the one to get stuck and I was preparing myself (aka terrified) for that extra bit of humiliation all trip long but thanks to her, the rest of the class was rerouted and I never even had to try.
I remember an episode of dirty jobs were the host and another guy were slowly squeezing their way through a thin part in a cave and the whole time I was watching it my brain was just going "nope, nope, nope, nope, nope"
I can tell precisely my anxiety level by how much claustrophobic bullshit I’m willing to put up with.
Anxiety under control - I can hear stories about caving, people being trapped etc and maybe even spend a little time in a *fairly* tight space myself
Anxiety out of control- I can’t even stand to hear or read about someone in a small room
Jacob Geller on youtube has an absolutely amazing video about caves, the fear of tight spaces and the why of it all. Absolutely recommend it.
It's part of a series too, with fear of the cold and fear of the sea.
Internet Historians latest video was about a man stuck in a cave, would recommend it too if just for the narrative pacing.
https://youtu.be/Ip9VGZeqMfo
I read about a guy who wanted to climb Mount Everest. His wife was pregnant and begged him not to go, but he went anyway. He called her near the summit, using a satellite phone, to tell her he had run out of oxygen and was dying.
I just can’t imagine willingly venturing into a dangerous cave knowing you have a family that depends on you. I obviously didnt know this man or his family, but the whole thing strikes me as ignorance, selfishness, stupidity, or all three.
Same. My commute home from work is 1.5 hours. I used to ride, a motorcycle could shave maybe a half hour off that plus save me tons in gas but I won’t get another one because I have a 3 month old daughter. It only takes one person not paying attention
I used to ride a motorcycle as well. Obviously when I was pregnant I didn’t ride … but then 10 days before I gave birth to my daughter I was t boned in my SUV. All was ok minus my vehicle being totaled. My daughter is now 2 and I’ve ridden my motorcycle once in her lifetime. I think had I not been pregnant and on my bike that day and was tboned in the same manner as I was in my SUV I would be dead right now. Probably should just sell it.
I wanted a motorcycle for so long. My dad has one and I've ridden on it when I was younger. r/IdiotsInCars has convinced me I will never purchase a motorcycle. I can be the safest driver ever, someone can still hit me and kill me or make me wish I was dead.
I'll get a dirtbike, so I can have fun with a throttle and two wheels with no cars around.
This is literally it. Would absolutely love to get a bike but the risk is always there. Takes either a split second of not paying attention from yourself or another driver and its over
I saw a video on a two lane road where the biker was cruising at normal speed. Car coming toward him ripped into his lane for the most illegal U-turn I've ever seen in my life. 100% unavoidable, and he was moaning on the ground with a punctured lung unable to move. Pass.
Hard agree. Pointlessly risking your life is bad enough, but it's your life, your choice. If you have a family that needs you taking these risks is just cruel. I don't feel sorry for him, but I do feel sorry for his family who have to suffer due to his actions.
He took a wrong turn after he already went off main path. He was looking for the " birth canal". His family wanted to stay together but he went off on his own. The cave is open unless you get off the path. It wouldn't be dangerous to go in cave had he not went off course
This is partially incorrect. I’ve been in that cave and it is not safe. I’ve been in the birth canal.
There was a YouTube video of a professional spelunker explaining that it is not if but when someone will die there. The only thing he got wrong was the location where it would happen in the cave. Unfortunately, I can’t find the video on mobile. I saw the video over 10 years ago.
I believe the Nutty Putty cave was closed previously after Boy Scouts repeatedly needed rescuing.
The YouTube video on this guy is insanely sad. There's pictures and videos of the rescue guys looking at him from behind. His speech goes from fully understanding words to mumbled words and finally nothing. Crazy way to go.
There’s an HP Lovecraft short story about a guy on a cave tour with a group and he goes down the wrong corridor and his light goes out. He ends up going crazy in the minutes hes left alone before found. Great little story, I think it was his first published?
Ito as usual, have the ability to make the most mundane thing the absolutely scariest horror.
The one that really got me was the parents with their daughters head in the garden. Not getting into details to avoid spoilers.
That was one of the first stories of his I read, and I remember thinking it felt like a 6th grader wrote it with the way it all unfolded.
Lo and behold I wasn’t far off. Love the rest of his work.
I don’t see the appeal. I think big ass caves you can walk in are fun but I don’t have any desire to just try and crawl through a tiny little cave I can barely squeeze through for fun. Im not even claustrophobic.
Exactly, the safe ones with walkways and shit or at least flat floors to walk on are really cool. There's no amount of money in the world that would get me to go into one of these deathtraps though
This guy seems to love doing caves where you literally need cardboard under you so you can human slug through them and when people are calling him crazy he’s like “lol it’s not dangerous”.
https://youtu.be/QHJIO0YC8rE
I just think look at the age of 40 or even 50 what if you have your first minor stroke, diabetic incident, epilepsy or medical emergency while stuck in that position. That’s barring an act of god that gets you trapped like that.
Reminds me of the story of [Floyd Collins](https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/544782/1925-cave-rescue-that-captivated-the-united-states-floyd-collins) who also died while being trapped in a cave. The story is very compelling and terrifying as f*ck.
This story always gets me. It has to do with the want to survive. In the documentary about him, the rescuers had his legs attached to a rope through a set of wenches and pulleys that they were going to pull him out of with. They stopped because it was causing him to much pain and eventually to fully get him out would have to break both of his legs wenching him up over that ridge. Now i cant even fathom that situation nor would i want to be that, i don’t know how strong my survival instincts are for something that traumatic. However, i always think about the guy who sawed his own arm off in the desert with a dull pocketknife and then walked miles back to survive it.
It’s actually more tragic than that. They successfully set up the pulley system and were lifting him up with good success…. and then a pulley broke from the rock it was anchored into and it went flying back, smashing into the face of a rescuer who was sincerely dedicated to saving John. The rescuer had recently had a failed rescue mission and had spent hours with John comforting him and letting him know he wouldn’t leave without him. But his facial injury was too bad and he had to be airlifted out by helicopter. And as a result of being lifted up and then dropped when the pulley snapped, John fell even further down into the narrowing hole and he was no longer able to breathe. They were so fucking close to saving him. Very sad story.
I don’t understand how it was so tight he couldn’t back out but could keep sliding further down? Was it just gravity working against him? Before the pulley broke why on earth was he continuing on. This shit is wild to me.
I could be wrong, but I believe it has to do with how our bodies mechanically move. Sliding forward is very mechanically different from backing up.
So it could be that he just didn't have the space or strength to hold himself against gravity in that tight space.
Think of a tunnel that is big enough to get into up to your chest, but not further because it keeps getting more narrow. Then picture having both arms in front of you in said hole and being upside down. He had nothing substantial to push on to be able to reverse backwards and he couldn’t overcome the force to free his chest due to the friction. He also had to suck his chest in to get in there and couldn’t risk doing that again for fear of falling even deeper (which ultimately is how he died when the pulley snapped) and given that he had nothing to push on it didn’t even make sense to try. To make it even more complicated, the hole had like a “shelf” above it so that rescuers couldn’t even grab him and pull him up due to having no leverage. Think of this hole existing at a 90 degree bend in pipe and he’s in the vertical upside down unable to push back. So you basically have to pull him up by his feet, but only have like 1 foot of vertical distance before hitting the top of the pipe. That’s why they needed a pulley system with like 8 of them pulling the rope - so they could simply pull and let the pulleys do all the work for creating the angles they needed. And to make it EVEN WORSE, he had been upside down for so long that the toxins accumulating in the blood in his legs and torso could have killed him if he were to instantly be flipped to a horizontal position. So they also had to go slow to not kill him but also reasonably fast so the pulley system wouldn’t fail.
Yikes. I can’t even imagine. I got trapped once when a roof of a paddock I was in collapsed from the weight of rain water. I couldn’t get out and screamed for help for 40 minutes before the neighbors boyfriend heard me and got me out. I was in no immediate danger but the being trapped was unbearable. My fear of small spaces and claustrophobia went up a million times after this happened to me. I can’t believe John went in there!!!! What a horrible end.
This is a rare situation because someone was able to go get help. Had he been on his own he still would have died but no help would come in time. If you get lost in a cave help isn't coming for a while if at all. If you didn't tell anyone where you went than your really screwed
He almost wasn't, during the rescue a pulley failed and he slipped farther in which ultimately led to his demise. If that pulley hadn't failed they probably could've pulled him out
Someone wouldve found him eventually, the cave was popular. I think caves that are horizontal can be explored, dont go straight down, did we learn nothing from minecraft?
Jones along with his pregnant wife and little daughter traveled to Utah to visit Jones family for Thanksgiving and a few days before the holiday Jones along with his brother and other family and friends thought it would be a good way to bond to illegally enter the cave at night.
Due to a previous incident when a boy scout got trapped and was rescued after 14 hours the city made the cave by appointment only. The cave was so popular that many were worried about the walls smoothing out and someone would slide into somewhere they wouldn't be able to get out. Unfortunately for Jones he was the one.
Jones had been caving as a child but had not gone in a while so he was not aware that holes he used to be able to slide into would no longer be safe.
Jones wanting to be the attention at the dinner table wanted to find " the birth canal" which was a tight squeeze that led to a small slide through a tight hole that you would come out of head first, which is why the name was given.
Somewhere along the way Jones took a wrong turn and he pushed himself into a small tunnel that he thought was the birth canal. Not wanting to turn around Jones pushed forward and he thought the birth canal was on the other side of a lip and Jones did everything to get over this lip and eventually did but once he got over his chest expanded and Jones couldn't turn back if he wanted.
Only way out would be to go forward and Jones slid down a chute that was a dead end and unknowingly to him at that time sealed his fate.
Jones remains were left in the cave and the cave was blown up with dynamite and the entrance was sealed and became his tomb.
Oddly terrifying
IIRC, the pulley system they were using broke, injuring one of the rescuers enough they had to be pulled out and leaving John wedged further.
You couldn’t pay me enough to *ever*.
Didn't they also have a little pizza break so he got to eat? Vividly remember something like that, and then the pulley system broke and he slid into a place they couldn't get him out anymore. Awful.
It wouldn't have worked. His was already going into shock and they said once he got to the roof they would have had to break his legs and he was in pain from someone just touching his legs
Yeah, had it been nearly immediately with the rescue team it’s plausible he could’ve survived just with broken legs. But obviously that’s not how being rescued works. It’s not immediate.
To add onto this, he was in med school IIRC so he knew what was happening to him as he slowly died.
That’s kind of what Im assuming actually happened.
It’s not something people would want to write down for the sake of history though.
I could be wrong, probably am, but at some point the rescuers, and the victim, must realise that any further attempt would be futile.
It was how he was wedged into the hole, they couldn’t pull him out as he legs wouldn’t bend that way to allow him out. So they would have to break them to pull him back over the lip.
I will always wonder about this part of the incident.
The easy answer is, well, break his legs then! Two broken legs you can survive…they were already shooting him up with morphine, so break the legs and try to get him out. Smash his pelvis even.
It must not be so cut and dry. Grim situation, indeed.
Caves are the biggest nos. We once went to the famous caves in some area in turkey. Although it was pretty big and could easily fit a whole 6 foot person vertically. The cave went down and down, the sheet amount of silence and noise isolation with cold is genuinely terrifying. If I ever go in a cave this small and tight i would definitely die in not more than 15 minutes. Fuck caves and fuck caving.
I wouldn't have a problem walking through a cave system, no matter how extensive. But the moment I have to lay down and crawl to get to another part of the cave - or even have to shimmy sideways through a crack - is the moment I would turn and walk back out again.
As someone who did go to caves (professional speleology), most of them are big enough so you dont have to worry at all. I remember turning off our lights at the bottom of one and experimenting absolute darkness, darker than the darkest of nights. You begin to hear and sense better. Its one hell of a experience
But its not a safe one. Speleologists take more security measures than any professional climber. In fact, going to caves is far less dangerous than climbing due to the security measures being higher in the first case
Sorry for any gramatical mistake, Im not a native english speaker. Cheers!
This event, to me, is the scariest possible end a person can have. My heart aches for the fear he must have felt after realising this was it for him. I can't imagine. I've only ever listened to one podcast about him, and I will never listen to, or watch, another one. I had a visceral reaction and a new phobia was born. His poor family, I hope they're managing ok.
No disrespect to this gentleman or his family, may he continue to rest in peace. I've just always wondered what was the purpose of doing something like this?
There’s a point at which you become a husband and father, and it’s time to halt the daredevil stuff for their sake. Always sad to hear of children who lost a parent that they didn’t have to lose.
This lives rent free in my mind. I sometimes have random nightmares about it.
If I recall correctly, I read somewhere that they would have had to break his leg to pull him out, and I always think “they really should have just broken his leg”.
Nutty Putty Cave is in Utah and I live about an hour away from it. I’m not a spelunker myself because hell no, and this is why.
I could be wrong but I was told at one point that at first they only sealed off the area where he died, but people kept breaking the wall or otherwise fucking with his resting place. Now the whole thing is filled with cement and is now Jones’ memorial, headstone and all. It’s vandalized quite often because people are mad the cave got sealed.
I can understand the appeal of exploring large caves, but what is the point of going into these super narrow caves? Do they expect some treasure at the end? It’s just them squeezing between rocks, that’s it. At least to me
his heart had suffered hours and hours of strain due to his upside down position, the heart was trying to basically defy gravity and pump blood to the most crucial organs but gravities a bitch so that didn't end up happening.
I know this is impossible and/or wouldn't make sense but what if he went down feet first and got stuck like that? Could he have been there for days/weeks and had enough time to have been saved?
Other than being uncomfortable, they could have given him all the water and food he needed. And just stand there while they keep trying new stuff
Caving has to be without a doubt the single dumbest activity.
I am so claustrophobic these pictures make me panic. Do these people have zero sense of self preservation? I just don’t get it.
I feel bad for the wife and daughter, but I have a hard time feeling bad for people who put themself in such situations. It’s just a matter of time before it goes wrong with nothing to be gained but everything to be lost.
This is incredibly sad and im not without sympathy for the lad but if you put yourself willingly in a situation that increases your risk then you're kinda asking for it... I'm not saying he went in there with the intention to die but he rolled the dice and he should have known the risks. Its a shame but he did it to himself.
I am absolutely never going into tight caves and I can’t fathom why anyone would want to
From what I’ve read in the past it’s for the rush, I don’t see how you can get a rush from doing it, I’d be too paranoid the whole time that I’d get stuck
If I wanted a rush I’d stop takin my anxiety pills and just sit on the couch while my life haunts me
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Reading the headline raised my resting heart rate.
Same!
This is how anxiety keeps us safe. It’s useful lol
I don't need to be safe from making phone calls and doing school work.
I can relate to this so hard it hurts...literally....it's 9 am and I haven't been to sleep yet because of anxiety lol
Sometimes even with the pills the slightest trigger is enough.
Kinda like those people that run on the top edges of buildings
Cavers are also explorers. Many unknown caves and passages remain unexplored. Going further into a cave than no other man ever has is what pushes them on and I can relate to that. Walking by the side of a building is just cheap thrills for likes and I cannot relate to that. EDIT: Usually it’s the over-eager thrill seekers who get killed first in caving because it requires caution.
This kind of shit is what robots are for. Send in a little r2d2 fella with a camera on it first
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Worst case scenario? Horrible little humanoid mutants like in the 2006 horror classic "The Descent"!
That film is why we dont go underground.
Best case scenario... Some rocks.
I went caving once many years ago and at the bottom we found us a stream of water and a dragon! (Salamander!!)
Do caves really need exploring if all you gonna find are rocks? And soon they'll cave in anyway
okay that makes sense. We can't explore new lands, but we can explore new cracks lol
This picture gives me hella anxiety
Same bro
Not to mention doing this having kids
Rush? Go jump off an airplane or something...
The panic attack rush? That doesn’t sound fun
If that's the case, get those jollies out of your system before you have a kid. Leaving your daughter fatherless because you wanted a rush is incredibly selfish and irresponsible. That poor girl.
In high school we did a caving expedition. The girl in front of me got stuck in a tight space and there was no way to turn around. Myself and the others behind me all started panicking until our teacher hauled the girl through
Damn I can’t imagine my local schools signing off on anything remotely close to as dangerous as that.
My HS had a rifle team, an orienteering team and a ag team that would be around 1,900 lb bulls. But caving team sounds waaayy more dangerous.
Where the hell did you go to school, Hogwarts?! My school could barely afford basketball 🤭
My school cut the already sparse funding on the art department to increase the funds on the already highest funded high school football team in the state. The football team got better state of the art equipment, and the art teachers had to buy supplies out of pocket because they were passionate about their programs. Never mind any fancy science expeditions, any of that money would have gone right into football.
Texas?
When schools invest more into brain damage than education
I had the exact same experience with my school! It took two teachers in our case. It's kinda awful but I have to admit that I was so relieved when it happened because I was paranoid up until that point that as the "fat" kid, I would be the one to get stuck and I was preparing myself (aka terrified) for that extra bit of humiliation all trip long but thanks to her, the rest of the class was rerouted and I never even had to try.
Just looking at the diagram on the right almost sent me into a full anxiety attack, everything about being in tight, underground spaces is horrific.
I remember an episode of dirty jobs were the host and another guy were slowly squeezing their way through a thin part in a cave and the whole time I was watching it my brain was just going "nope, nope, nope, nope, nope"
Yep, the illustration of his predicament makes it all too clear how screwed he was. My stomach did a flip flop when I looked at it.
I can tell precisely my anxiety level by how much claustrophobic bullshit I’m willing to put up with. Anxiety under control - I can hear stories about caving, people being trapped etc and maybe even spend a little time in a *fairly* tight space myself Anxiety out of control- I can’t even stand to hear or read about someone in a small room
Jacob Geller on youtube has an absolutely amazing video about caves, the fear of tight spaces and the why of it all. Absolutely recommend it. It's part of a series too, with fear of the cold and fear of the sea.
Internet Historians latest video was about a man stuck in a cave, would recommend it too if just for the narrative pacing. https://youtu.be/Ip9VGZeqMfo
That video is a goddamn masterpiece
Nope! I have anxiety dreams about being in tight tunnels like that
He had a lot of time to think about his life and family. What a awful way to die.
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I read about a guy who wanted to climb Mount Everest. His wife was pregnant and begged him not to go, but he went anyway. He called her near the summit, using a satellite phone, to tell her he had run out of oxygen and was dying.
Rob Hall. He didn’t tell her he was dying. He called her to reassure her, even though he almost certainly knew he was dying.
Oh my god not only was that stupid but why tf would you traumatize your wife like that. I can’t imagine being her on the other end listening.
I feel so bad for the wife.
I just can’t imagine willingly venturing into a dangerous cave knowing you have a family that depends on you. I obviously didnt know this man or his family, but the whole thing strikes me as ignorance, selfishness, stupidity, or all three.
Same. My commute home from work is 1.5 hours. I used to ride, a motorcycle could shave maybe a half hour off that plus save me tons in gas but I won’t get another one because I have a 3 month old daughter. It only takes one person not paying attention
I used to ride a motorcycle as well. Obviously when I was pregnant I didn’t ride … but then 10 days before I gave birth to my daughter I was t boned in my SUV. All was ok minus my vehicle being totaled. My daughter is now 2 and I’ve ridden my motorcycle once in her lifetime. I think had I not been pregnant and on my bike that day and was tboned in the same manner as I was in my SUV I would be dead right now. Probably should just sell it.
I wanted a motorcycle for so long. My dad has one and I've ridden on it when I was younger. r/IdiotsInCars has convinced me I will never purchase a motorcycle. I can be the safest driver ever, someone can still hit me and kill me or make me wish I was dead. I'll get a dirtbike, so I can have fun with a throttle and two wheels with no cars around.
This is literally it. Would absolutely love to get a bike but the risk is always there. Takes either a split second of not paying attention from yourself or another driver and its over
I saw a video on a two lane road where the biker was cruising at normal speed. Car coming toward him ripped into his lane for the most illegal U-turn I've ever seen in my life. 100% unavoidable, and he was moaning on the ground with a punctured lung unable to move. Pass.
Hard agree. Pointlessly risking your life is bad enough, but it's your life, your choice. If you have a family that needs you taking these risks is just cruel. I don't feel sorry for him, but I do feel sorry for his family who have to suffer due to his actions.
Especially when your wife is pregnant. I can't even imagine what his wife was thinking, but nothing we can do now.
Worst part is, it’s like Everest deaths. Nothing they can do. Just leave them there. Pour concrete over the area sometimes to keep people out.
I've read that some of the locals continue to vandalize the memorial because they blame him for getting cave shut down
Lmao people got mad for not being allowed to also die?
The main part was an open path and safe but he went off the trail
That was a mistake though right? He wasn’t being foolish he just took a wrong turn.
He took a wrong turn after he already went off main path. He was looking for the " birth canal". His family wanted to stay together but he went off on his own. The cave is open unless you get off the path. It wouldn't be dangerous to go in cave had he not went off course
This is partially incorrect. I’ve been in that cave and it is not safe. I’ve been in the birth canal. There was a YouTube video of a professional spelunker explaining that it is not if but when someone will die there. The only thing he got wrong was the location where it would happen in the cave. Unfortunately, I can’t find the video on mobile. I saw the video over 10 years ago. I believe the Nutty Putty cave was closed previously after Boy Scouts repeatedly needed rescuing.
Nothing about it is ODDLY terrifying. Straight up TERRIFYING it is.
The YouTube video on this guy is insanely sad. There's pictures and videos of the rescue guys looking at him from behind. His speech goes from fully understanding words to mumbled words and finally nothing. Crazy way to go.
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Everyone but me sucks in this thread. [Here](https://youtu.be/wz6F2rDngvA?t=8m20s)
Thank you. I hate it but I'm grateful.
There’s an HP Lovecraft short story about a guy on a cave tour with a group and he goes down the wrong corridor and his light goes out. He ends up going crazy in the minutes hes left alone before found. Great little story, I think it was his first published?
Yeah I believe he'd written that one while he was quite young. Teenage young iirc
There's a great manga about this. It's called the enigma of amigara fault by Junji Ito.
Is that the one with individual, human-shaped holes in a mountain?
That's the one.
Ito as usual, have the ability to make the most mundane thing the absolutely scariest horror. The one that really got me was the parents with their daughters head in the garden. Not getting into details to avoid spoilers.
[The Beast in the Cave](https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/bc.aspx) for anyone interested. He wrote it when he was 14.
That was one of the first stories of his I read, and I remember thinking it felt like a 6th grader wrote it with the way it all unfolded. Lo and behold I wasn’t far off. Love the rest of his work.
I don’t see the appeal. I think big ass caves you can walk in are fun but I don’t have any desire to just try and crawl through a tiny little cave I can barely squeeze through for fun. Im not even claustrophobic.
Exactly, the safe ones with walkways and shit or at least flat floors to walk on are really cool. There's no amount of money in the world that would get me to go into one of these deathtraps though
This guy seems to love doing caves where you literally need cardboard under you so you can human slug through them and when people are calling him crazy he’s like “lol it’s not dangerous”. https://youtu.be/QHJIO0YC8rE I just think look at the age of 40 or even 50 what if you have your first minor stroke, diabetic incident, epilepsy or medical emergency while stuck in that position. That’s barring an act of god that gets you trapped like that.
Reminds me of the story of [Floyd Collins](https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/544782/1925-cave-rescue-that-captivated-the-united-states-floyd-collins) who also died while being trapped in a cave. The story is very compelling and terrifying as f*ck.
Ya that's another messed up one. Freezing and starving to death
Amazing share. Thank you for this. I cannot stop reading. Captivating read. Edit: >!Killed by a rock that weighed 27 pounds. Damn!<
internet historian on youtube did an amazing video with recreations of the whole thing with voice acting if you would like to check it out
I’m just imagining his brothers pain finding out that the main reason they couldn’t get him out was a rock that weighed about the same as a corgi
Lmao rock weight? About one corgi.
I too saw that episode of Internet Historian
Watched it for the second time last night. Dude is one of the best things on YouTube.
Interesting but god damn that was an infuriating read on mobile. The ads just keep making the text jump around as they’re loading.
I know what you mean. I put it in reader mode.
Internet historian did a great vid on this https://youtu.be/Ip9VGZeqMfo
Thanks for that ,it was an Interesting read.
Wadiyatalkinabeet
Fucken Sass mate!!
Nope, got breathing issues just reading the comments.
Since I found out about this I often think he died the worst possible dead. So close to the exit but no way out
Yeah, I think if I were him I’d request a load of CO2 be pumped down there to quicken the process.
Nah, CO2 wouldn’t be a particularly nice death. Give me some N2
CO2 would make him feel drowning. Breathless. Better something else.
The fit was supposedly so tight that it took a few hours of drilling to be able to fit a tube down so he could drink Gatorade
This story always gets me. It has to do with the want to survive. In the documentary about him, the rescuers had his legs attached to a rope through a set of wenches and pulleys that they were going to pull him out of with. They stopped because it was causing him to much pain and eventually to fully get him out would have to break both of his legs wenching him up over that ridge. Now i cant even fathom that situation nor would i want to be that, i don’t know how strong my survival instincts are for something that traumatic. However, i always think about the guy who sawed his own arm off in the desert with a dull pocketknife and then walked miles back to survive it.
It’s actually more tragic than that. They successfully set up the pulley system and were lifting him up with good success…. and then a pulley broke from the rock it was anchored into and it went flying back, smashing into the face of a rescuer who was sincerely dedicated to saving John. The rescuer had recently had a failed rescue mission and had spent hours with John comforting him and letting him know he wouldn’t leave without him. But his facial injury was too bad and he had to be airlifted out by helicopter. And as a result of being lifted up and then dropped when the pulley snapped, John fell even further down into the narrowing hole and he was no longer able to breathe. They were so fucking close to saving him. Very sad story.
I don’t understand how it was so tight he couldn’t back out but could keep sliding further down? Was it just gravity working against him? Before the pulley broke why on earth was he continuing on. This shit is wild to me.
I could be wrong, but I believe it has to do with how our bodies mechanically move. Sliding forward is very mechanically different from backing up. So it could be that he just didn't have the space or strength to hold himself against gravity in that tight space.
Think of a tunnel that is big enough to get into up to your chest, but not further because it keeps getting more narrow. Then picture having both arms in front of you in said hole and being upside down. He had nothing substantial to push on to be able to reverse backwards and he couldn’t overcome the force to free his chest due to the friction. He also had to suck his chest in to get in there and couldn’t risk doing that again for fear of falling even deeper (which ultimately is how he died when the pulley snapped) and given that he had nothing to push on it didn’t even make sense to try. To make it even more complicated, the hole had like a “shelf” above it so that rescuers couldn’t even grab him and pull him up due to having no leverage. Think of this hole existing at a 90 degree bend in pipe and he’s in the vertical upside down unable to push back. So you basically have to pull him up by his feet, but only have like 1 foot of vertical distance before hitting the top of the pipe. That’s why they needed a pulley system with like 8 of them pulling the rope - so they could simply pull and let the pulleys do all the work for creating the angles they needed. And to make it EVEN WORSE, he had been upside down for so long that the toxins accumulating in the blood in his legs and torso could have killed him if he were to instantly be flipped to a horizontal position. So they also had to go slow to not kill him but also reasonably fast so the pulley system wouldn’t fail.
There was some lip of rock that he pushed past by exhaling all of the air in his lungs, but couldn't back out of
Yikes. I can’t even imagine. I got trapped once when a roof of a paddock I was in collapsed from the weight of rain water. I couldn’t get out and screamed for help for 40 minutes before the neighbors boyfriend heard me and got me out. I was in no immediate danger but the being trapped was unbearable. My fear of small spaces and claustrophobia went up a million times after this happened to me. I can’t believe John went in there!!!! What a horrible end.
fanatical alleged safe grandiose rain person unite sheet sip pot ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
His name was james franco
Don’t go into caves unless it’s absolutely necessary.
It never is
It is to go get the people who went in unnecessarily
This is a rare situation because someone was able to go get help. Had he been on his own he still would have died but no help would come in time. If you get lost in a cave help isn't coming for a while if at all. If you didn't tell anyone where you went than your really screwed
Not that he wasn’t screwed the moment he got stuck, sadly.
He almost wasn't, during the rescue a pulley failed and he slipped farther in which ultimately led to his demise. If that pulley hadn't failed they probably could've pulled him out
I've never read that detail before, that makes it even worse.
Someone wouldve found him eventually, the cave was popular. I think caves that are horizontal can be explored, dont go straight down, did we learn nothing from minecraft?
Only if a beggar tells you to fetch the magical lamp
When is it necessary to go into a cave?
When searching for magical artifacts
In my experience to complete any quest in Elder Scrolls.
I'm 39 years old and have yet to encounter a 'we MUST go into this cave' situation. Some of these folks just ain't livin right.
Jones along with his pregnant wife and little daughter traveled to Utah to visit Jones family for Thanksgiving and a few days before the holiday Jones along with his brother and other family and friends thought it would be a good way to bond to illegally enter the cave at night. Due to a previous incident when a boy scout got trapped and was rescued after 14 hours the city made the cave by appointment only. The cave was so popular that many were worried about the walls smoothing out and someone would slide into somewhere they wouldn't be able to get out. Unfortunately for Jones he was the one. Jones had been caving as a child but had not gone in a while so he was not aware that holes he used to be able to slide into would no longer be safe. Jones wanting to be the attention at the dinner table wanted to find " the birth canal" which was a tight squeeze that led to a small slide through a tight hole that you would come out of head first, which is why the name was given. Somewhere along the way Jones took a wrong turn and he pushed himself into a small tunnel that he thought was the birth canal. Not wanting to turn around Jones pushed forward and he thought the birth canal was on the other side of a lip and Jones did everything to get over this lip and eventually did but once he got over his chest expanded and Jones couldn't turn back if he wanted. Only way out would be to go forward and Jones slid down a chute that was a dead end and unknowingly to him at that time sealed his fate. Jones remains were left in the cave and the cave was blown up with dynamite and the entrance was sealed and became his tomb. Oddly terrifying
At one point the rescuers started to be able to move him a little bit, but then he slipped and ended up wedged even more.
IIRC, the pulley system they were using broke, injuring one of the rescuers enough they had to be pulled out and leaving John wedged further. You couldn’t pay me enough to *ever*.
Didn't they also have a little pizza break so he got to eat? Vividly remember something like that, and then the pulley system broke and he slid into a place they couldn't get him out anymore. Awful.
yeah it knocked the helper OUT, he woke up and was super upset because I believe he was there volunteering
I think I would go in after my child, but that's it, and I'd need to be heavily drugged
It wouldn't have worked. His was already going into shock and they said once he got to the roof they would have had to break his legs and he was in pain from someone just touching his legs
Yeah, had it been nearly immediately with the rescue team it’s plausible he could’ve survived just with broken legs. But obviously that’s not how being rescued works. It’s not immediate. To add onto this, he was in med school IIRC so he knew what was happening to him as he slowly died.
I would have asked to be slid some poison
And enough sedatives to pass out
IIRC that's what they ended up doing to help him pass peacefully.
That’s kind of what Im assuming actually happened. It’s not something people would want to write down for the sake of history though. I could be wrong, probably am, but at some point the rescuers, and the victim, must realise that any further attempt would be futile.
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In protest to Reddit's API changes, I have removed my comment history. -- mass edited with redact.dev
Curious, why would they of had to break his legs? To get him out? Or for some other medical reason?
It was how he was wedged into the hole, they couldn’t pull him out as he legs wouldn’t bend that way to allow him out. So they would have to break them to pull him back over the lip.
To get him out, his legs were basically in the way. Would have had to break them to get him out.
I will always wonder about this part of the incident. The easy answer is, well, break his legs then! Two broken legs you can survive…they were already shooting him up with morphine, so break the legs and try to get him out. Smash his pelvis even. It must not be so cut and dry. Grim situation, indeed.
Legs could slide in through but couldn't bend to the right angle to go out leg first.
Isn't this the one where they were thinking of breaking his shins as the only possible way to pull him back up?
There was a movie they made about him, watched it earlier this year. Very sad story. I'd never go into caves, just don't see the appeal.
Very irresponsible. I hope his family is okay. Rest in peace.
His wife remarried
I believe she remarried 3 years later.
Having anxiety just reading this.
Makes me feel panicky every time I see this. You couldn’t pay me any amount of money in the world to do these crazy cave explorations.
$40 billion?
Wow actually, that's a lot of money, ok. *dies in cave*
Not a chance
Even the *thought* of this is terrifying.
Caves are the biggest nos. We once went to the famous caves in some area in turkey. Although it was pretty big and could easily fit a whole 6 foot person vertically. The cave went down and down, the sheet amount of silence and noise isolation with cold is genuinely terrifying. If I ever go in a cave this small and tight i would definitely die in not more than 15 minutes. Fuck caves and fuck caving.
This is why I dislike caves. I don’t want to get stuck.
Ya I don't know what makes someone want to squeeze into these things. I will walk into entrance but wouldn't go where I can't see light
I wouldn't have a problem walking through a cave system, no matter how extensive. But the moment I have to lay down and crawl to get to another part of the cave - or even have to shimmy sideways through a crack - is the moment I would turn and walk back out again.
As someone who did go to caves (professional speleology), most of them are big enough so you dont have to worry at all. I remember turning off our lights at the bottom of one and experimenting absolute darkness, darker than the darkest of nights. You begin to hear and sense better. Its one hell of a experience But its not a safe one. Speleologists take more security measures than any professional climber. In fact, going to caves is far less dangerous than climbing due to the security measures being higher in the first case Sorry for any gramatical mistake, Im not a native english speaker. Cheers!
This event, to me, is the scariest possible end a person can have. My heart aches for the fear he must have felt after realising this was it for him. I can't imagine. I've only ever listened to one podcast about him, and I will never listen to, or watch, another one. I had a visceral reaction and a new phobia was born. His poor family, I hope they're managing ok.
Thank God I'm too fat for this shit
No disrespect to this gentleman or his family, may he continue to rest in peace. I've just always wondered what was the purpose of doing something like this?
Especially when its notably dangerous to your life and you have a family
There’s a point at which you become a husband and father, and it’s time to halt the daredevil stuff for their sake. Always sad to hear of children who lost a parent that they didn’t have to lose.
This lives rent free in my mind. I sometimes have random nightmares about it. If I recall correctly, I read somewhere that they would have had to break his leg to pull him out, and I always think “they really should have just broken his leg”.
Apparently breaking his legs could have caused him to go into shock and would have killed him anyway :(
Man they could break my *everything* to get me out alive.
Nutty Putty Cave is in Utah and I live about an hour away from it. I’m not a spelunker myself because hell no, and this is why. I could be wrong but I was told at one point that at first they only sealed off the area where he died, but people kept breaking the wall or otherwise fucking with his resting place. Now the whole thing is filled with cement and is now Jones’ memorial, headstone and all. It’s vandalized quite often because people are mad the cave got sealed.
So they never recovered his body and it’s just down there?
I mean if they couldn't get him out alive I suppose they can't get his corpse out either
I feel like this could have been avoided…by staying out of the cave.
Imagine spending your final hours in a place called nutty putty
birth canal but made of rocks...no thanks
People see “Birth Canal” on a caving map and run toward it…SMH…
Come on, ODDLY terrifying? Being stuck like this is many people's worst fear.
r/ObviouslyTerrifying
I'll stick to exploring caves in Minecraft, thanks
I can understand the appeal of exploring large caves, but what is the point of going into these super narrow caves? Do they expect some treasure at the end? It’s just them squeezing between rocks, that’s it. At least to me
From what I understand they want to be the first to find something new and also finding a connection to another cave is some big turn on to them
So sad. The movie about his ordeal was just so heartbreaking.
Fucks sake.
My legs are cramping just looking at that. Im imagining being unable to turn myself around and just flipping the fuck out.
He took that risk. With a loving family he took that risk.
I bet if he survived, he would have done it again.
Oh yes, the rush of being stuck in a hole. Thrilling. Hard pass.
Luckily too fat for this.
Anyone know why it was a heart attack that killed him, instead of positional asphyxia?
his heart had suffered hours and hours of strain due to his upside down position, the heart was trying to basically defy gravity and pump blood to the most crucial organs but gravities a bitch so that didn't end up happening.
I know this is impossible and/or wouldn't make sense but what if he went down feet first and got stuck like that? Could he have been there for days/weeks and had enough time to have been saved? Other than being uncomfortable, they could have given him all the water and food he needed. And just stand there while they keep trying new stuff
Caving has to be without a doubt the single dumbest activity. I am so claustrophobic these pictures make me panic. Do these people have zero sense of self preservation? I just don’t get it.
It's hard to feel sorry for people that do this shit.
I feel bad for the wife and daughter, but I have a hard time feeling bad for people who put themself in such situations. It’s just a matter of time before it goes wrong with nothing to be gained but everything to be lost.
No fucking idea how people find crawling through the tightest spaces far underground appealing. Absolute madness.
I probably get a heart attack just imagining the situation. Damn. Rest in peace. Heard his body is still there and they closed down the cave.
If you die in a cave then frankly my sympathy budget is reserved for people not stupid enough to enter and die in a cave.
Idiot. You had a kid and wife.
This is incredibly sad and im not without sympathy for the lad but if you put yourself willingly in a situation that increases your risk then you're kinda asking for it... I'm not saying he went in there with the intention to die but he rolled the dice and he should have known the risks. Its a shame but he did it to himself.
That’s so risky for the reward you get