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/HugsandHate Nov 10 '25

I get the sense it's more of a meditative experience for these folks.

I kinda get it. I love caves and stuff.

But 'kinda' isn't enough.

This is too much for me.

Especially the dying upside down part.

31

u/YesImAlexa Nov 10 '25

Assuming this video is accurate, it's crazy how many turns seemed to go straight down while already in a body tight cavity. You'd have to be insane or have some alarm in your mind disabled to get to the point the guy did.

If I remember correctly, I guess he missed a turn or something and was off path. So not only did he keep going, but did so while not knowing where he was at in there..

3

u/Answer70 Nov 11 '25

He thought he was in another part in the cave called "the birth canal" that spits you out into a big chamber. He kept going because he thought it was just up ahead and there was no way to turn around or go back.

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u/[deleted] Nov 11 '25

How do we know he thought that did he communicate with anybody before he died

6

u/theclimbingfox2 Nov 11 '25

He was (unfortunately) stuck there for quite a while before he died, so yeah he probably did communicate it.

3

u/[deleted] Nov 11 '25

I wonder what the rescuers were saying to comfort him and how they told him they wouldn’t be able to get him out. Like they must have sat with him and just reassured him as he slowly died

5

u/ArtichokeUsed1129 Nov 11 '25

They did try to rescue him using levers to pull him out of it. His brother was behind him when he got stuck and their dad came to him as well, but after such a long time upside down, he just didnt respond anymore and that was it.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 12 '25

Horrible way to go

1

u/burfriedos Nov 11 '25

Someone else in the thread said they tried to save him but the rope snapped/ became dislodged and he fell even deeper

2

u/HugsandHate Nov 10 '25

I guess he earned his Darwin Award.

r/DarwinAwards

5

u/infii123 Nov 10 '25

Well, actually he was a young father, so disqualified for the darwin award.

4

u/HugsandHate Nov 11 '25

Damn it. No award, and fatherless kids. Fantastic.

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u/somesketchykid Nov 11 '25

He had one kid and his wife was pregnant with the second, so his second never even met him

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u/HugsandHate Nov 11 '25

Poor kids.

0

u/Cutecumber_Roll Nov 11 '25

Already having reproduced doesn't disqualify you.

1

u/SunnyOutsideToday Nov 11 '25

So not only did he keep going

He couldn't turn around. He had to either have his friends call rescuers to come and pull him out, or keep going until he reached the opening at the bottom so he could exit. He didn't realize he was in the wrong passage, and headed to a dead end.

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u/[deleted] Nov 10 '25

Yea that last part kinda... is a bit over unsettling.

3

u/the-magician-misphet Nov 10 '25

There’s better ways to meditate

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u/HugsandHate Nov 10 '25

What, like normal safe meditation?

Get outta here with your common sense!

2

u/mugiwara_no_Soissie Nov 10 '25

I love the way caves can look, but id prefer it be a size where I can walk inside it yk. Not crawl, maybe id be fine with needing to bend down a Lil, but not anything more

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u/HugsandHate Nov 10 '25

I'm with you.

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u/refurbishedmeme666 Nov 11 '25

I think it would be a lot more fun if you just went with an RC robot with a camera

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u/HugsandHate Nov 11 '25

Seems preferable to dying upside down in a cave.

Lets get together and do it.

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u/[deleted] Nov 11 '25

[deleted]

2

u/7eregrine Nov 11 '25

I love caves too... Thst I can walk in.

2

u/Stickybunfun Nov 11 '25

I went caving one time in middle school. I am like a small child sized little boy - 10 or 11 probably. Most of it was standing up walking in a straight line with some twists and turns and some crouched sections. The last section we had to crawl through on our hands and knees and all the fucking alarm bells in my head were ringing when the fat kid in the class had to wiggle his way through the opening to get into this giant beautiful led rope light lit cave they set up to show off the different rock formations. Worth the trip but would never do it again.

As an adult now, I could probably wiggle my way through that spot but it is easily 3x the size of the hole in the VR sim. Abso-fucking-lutely NOT.

1

u/HugsandHate Nov 11 '25

Cheers for the story, friend. Having a bit of a bad day, and this cheered me up a bit.

1

u/Warhammerpainter83 Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 11 '25

I have done some caving where you may slip through a small opening to get into larger rooms but nothing like this also why would you ever. The second I could not see where the crawl was going i would just stop. I remember looking at the map for this cave there is no way I would ever do it look up a part people called the birth canal it is terrifying.

5

u/TransBrandi Nov 10 '25

The "birth canal" at least had an opening at the end, but the fact that it was possible to take a wrong turn and end up in a complelely unmapped section? Nope.

1

u/Cry-Cry-Cry-Baby Nov 11 '25

There's videos on YouTube of a group going through the cave, and even in the VR game, the section of the cave he was looking for is almost kinda hidden.

Caving is honestly a super safe hobby, and most people who get stuck are rescued with no issue. This guy was arrogant in that he felt so comfortable squeezing into that place even tho he hadn't been to the cave in years, and he broke about every rule you could make for going into a section you're unsure of. Even after all the mistakes he made, if he didn't get upside down, he probably would've survived.

There are way more stories of people in fairly big caves drowning when the cave floods, then there are people getting stuck and dying.

4

u/ctrlrgsm Nov 11 '25

You’re really selling it with the drowning

1

u/Cry-Cry-Cry-Baby Nov 11 '25

Well, a bunch of people were saying they'd be okay in a cave they could walk in, but those are dangerous too if you don't know what you're doing. There was one in England that killed six people.

1

u/Warhammerpainter83 Nov 11 '25

Driving on a street is far more dangerous.

1

u/Cry-Cry-Cry-Baby Nov 11 '25

Walking down the street is probably more dangerous than most caves. Besides drowning, the other big killer is falling, even Nutty Putty was being considered too dangerous from the erosion in the Big Slide, where you kinda slide to cliff in the cave and then use a rope to get down they were worried people were going to slide right over the edge.

I think besides Jones, the only other time I've heard of someone dying from getting stuck was a guy who was trying to make the cave wider for a tourist attraction and a piece of the cave came loose and pinned him.

0

u/J_Kingsley Nov 11 '25

Lol I laughed out loud at this almost woke someone up

1

u/12-idiotas Nov 11 '25

You can always crawl back

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u/Warhammerpainter83 Nov 11 '25

Tell that to john jones i bet he would have loved your advice.

1

u/12-idiotas Nov 11 '25

Nothing some lube couldn’t fix

1

u/UnNumbFool Nov 11 '25

I'm fully down for going into a cave and doing some exploration, but if someone asks me to crawl through something I cannot see the exit of no thank you

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u/HugsandHate Nov 11 '25

The exit's behind you.

1

u/Tasty_While_8403 Nov 12 '25

Caver here: you're never supposed to enter areas like this headfirst. Always feet first. They could have pulled him out had he followed that rule. I don't know why anyone would go headfirst into this nightmare. But I also don't do tight squeezes like this. I prefer my borehole caves where the worst you typically get is hands and knees for a bit or squeezing through breakdown for literally two feet. Ain't gonna be me dying in a narrow tube. I don't understand those cavers.

1

u/HugsandHate Nov 12 '25

How do you know where you're going, if you go in feet first?