After spending nearly 28 hours trapped in a Utah cave, second-year Medical student John Jones died late Wednesday. Rescue efforts failed to extract the 26-year-old, who classmates described as a loving, devoted and optimistic family man.
Jones was wedged in a passageway of Nutty Putty Cave that was 18 inches wide and about 10 inches high, positioned head-down at about a 60 to 70 degree angle, said Sgt. Spencer Cannon, the Utah County Sheriff's Office public information officer.
This position was part of the reason rescue efforts failed, he said. Rescuers faced similar cramped confines and sharp angles as they worked to free Jones.
"It was very, very difficult to get him into any kind of position where they could move him at all," Cannon said.
Rescuers moved Jones millimeters at a time and eventually repositioned him, securing him with climbing equipment and gear so that he was no longer head-down, he said. One of the anchors the rescuers had drilled into the roof of the cave gave way, however, and Jones slipped back into the passageway, Cannon said.
A few hours before his death, Jones had trouble breathing and lost consciousness, he said. Being immobilized for an extended period of time has physiological effects on an individual, causing bodily systems to stop working the way they are supposed to and to possibly shut down, Cannon said.
The exact cause of Jones' death, however, most likely will never be known, Cannon noted. Officials have permanently closed Nutty Putty Cave
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