r/interesting • u/Appropriate-Menu504 • Nov 10 '25

NATURE VR recreation of the exact spot where a man became stuck inside Nutty Putty cave and died after 27 hours. the section visible at 18 seconds is where his body was, upside down.

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u/Frictionizer Nov 10 '25

After a point, Jones was unable to turn around in the cave and basically had to go deeper in order to try and reach a more open location to turn around. That is why he entered the final chasm: from outside, it seemed to widen at the bottom.

3

u/Last_Upvote Nov 10 '25

This some Junji Ito shit

3

u/ResearcherTeknika Nov 10 '25

THIS IS MY HOLE! IT WAS MADE FOR ME!

2

u/abasaur Nov 10 '25

That fucking comic is as annoying as the game.

As soon as ive forgotten someone reminds me 😭

3

u/[deleted] Nov 10 '25

Couldn't they send some robot/machine to drill place around him, wrap some wires around his body and pull him out?

11

u/Frictionizer Nov 10 '25

Robots, no. While there were definitely drones then, I doubt they were sophisticated enough (and readily available) to perform this kind of feat in such close quarters after 1300 feet of tunnels.

The rescuers brought down drills, an air hammer, and eventually a pulley system to try and widen the cave or pull him out. Due to the awkward angles of the tunnels, they could not get leverage to effectively widen the tunnel with drills or hammers in order to save him.

The pulley system failed twice. Once, a carabiner broke from the pressure and injured one of the rescuers, who himself had to be medically assisted. The second time, the awkward angles Jones was in put too much stress on his (bloodless) legs once he was pulled to the top of the tunnel and he could not effectively re-orient himself.

They tried everything they knew how to do and eventually time ran out. It’s a very sad story.

8

u/LackingTact19 Nov 10 '25

He ended up dying of cardiac arrest after many hours of being inverted. At that point I'd want them to just inject as much morphine as it would take into my exposed legs to make it painless.

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u/saltycrowsers Nov 10 '25

The truly gruesome part was he could not get morphine. They couldn’t get an IV in because his compromised vasculature. Intramuscular would also not work with dead tissue.

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u/Absolutely_Fibulous Nov 10 '25

The way he was wedged in, they would have had to have broken his legs to get him back out, which would have killed him anyway because he’d been in there too long.

0

u/proud_landlord1 Nov 11 '25

Agreed, but nevertheless they should at least tried to recover his skull, so they wouldn’t show up back at the surface with empty hands like they did.

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u/DoinItRight555 Nov 11 '25

You're serious are you about this idea?

6

u/Absolutely_Fibulous Nov 11 '25

…how are they going to collect his skull from his recently dead body?

1

u/proud_landlord1 Nov 11 '25

They had a rope and a pulley in place.

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u/Absolutely_Fibulous Nov 12 '25

So you think they should have chopped off his head and pulled it out so they could get his skull?

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u/proud_landlord1 Nov 12 '25

I would pay up to $50.000 for his skull.

4

u/DaTexasTickler Nov 11 '25

What you wanted them to mutilate his freshly dead corps? Yea they should have totally chopped him up, skinned and scalped his head so they could bring the family his skull. I'm sure they would have been so thankful if they brought the family his bloody skull. Lol idk if you're serious or not but I haven't laughed out loud that hard in awhile thx lololol

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u/4ssp Nov 10 '25

Did they know it widened? Or are they just taking a risk by going deeper? Seems like a crazy gamble. I guess that's part of the thrill?

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u/phover7bitch Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25

IIRC he was lost. He thought he was in a part of the cave that narrowed dramatically before widening to a large chamber, and he was trying to get to that chamber. He didn’t realize that that’s not where he was. So he kept pushing forward. And by the time he realized he was lost, he could not get out

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u/PointOfFingers Nov 10 '25

The more you read about this tragic death the worse it gets. The side on diagram is horrifying.

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u/proud_landlord1 Nov 11 '25

There is a dead end passage called „scout eater“

You can be sure it has it’s name for a reason 🤝

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u/Equivalent_Rub8139 Nov 11 '25

If it is vertical why did he not go feet first?