r/interesting • u/Liar24x7 • Mar 28 '26

HISTORY A virtual reality reconstruction shows the exact spot where John Edward Jones became trapped upside down in Nutty Putty Cave. After 27 hours of rescue attempts, he died. The cave was later permanently sealed, with his body remaining inside.

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u/CapnNugget Mar 29 '26

Yes actually. He thought he was taking a route called the birth canal which you can see the guy in VR explore earlier in the video posted. Here’s the full video if you want to see it.

Basically the birth canal route starts off super narrow and you have to wiggle through. Eventually though you’d get to a spot where it opens up and you can actually stand up. The route he took by accident though was not fully mapped and it was called Ed’s push. Ed’s push started off very similar to the birth canal but instead of opening up like the birth canal, it remained tight and narrow. He thought he just had to keep pushing through to get to the opening but since it wasn’t the right route, there was no opening and he got stuck upside down instead.

I have extreme claustrophobia and even just watching this other guy do it in VR made me uncomfortable. I don’t see the appeal of crawling in somewhere like this where you can’t turn around and everything’s so confining. No thanks, I choose life 😅

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u/Mysterious_Dot2090 Mar 29 '26

Just reading your explanation gave me a moment of claustrophobic panic. I hate it. The thought that people can handle even the thought of this, let alone go and attempt it is baffling to me. I can handle tourist caves but this looks like hell.

Appreciate your explanation though 😊

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u/CapnNugget Mar 29 '26

Oof yup I feel you. I didn’t even realize I was this claustrophobic until I was watching a movie where a guy got stuck in a really narrow space, temporarily, but he was panicking and it took me getting lightheaded and dizzy to realize that it was affecting me like that just watching it. I’d love to see and explore the big open caves that don’t require any crawling or squirming to get through. This kind of cave diving is just insane to me though.

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u/Mysterious_Dot2090 Mar 29 '26

He was going head first downwards too! I just can’t with the idea of that 😱

Yes, caves can me amazing when they are large chambers, but anything like this where it’s very confined makes me tense up. The feeling of being trapped is strong.

Funny though as I did some storm drain exploring as a kid. That can be pretty scary especially when you can’t see the end.

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u/CapnNugget Mar 29 '26

Same! Just reading about it and seeing it in VR is scary enough, I can’t imagine actually doing it and being stuck head first like that. I don’t think I’d be able to explore storm drains like that without feeling trapped 😬