‍Nutty Putty Cave trapped John upside down. 

‍Above left: His feet sticking out.

‍FOR 27 hours, millions of TV News viewers kept tuning in for updates as more than 50 rescuers desperately worked shifts to free a young potholer wedged upside down in a rock ‘tomb’ fighting for his life.

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‍The space was so tight he could barely breath air into his lungs. But no one knew then that he would stay there for ever.

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‍It was November 24, 2009, and ropes, pulleys, and drilling equipment were squeezed into a dangerous part of a cave system where 26-year-old medical student John Jones was stuck on his first potholing adventure for years.

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‍He was in Utah for Thanksgiving, when his brother suggested they spent a day with his mates exploring Nutty Putty Cave, a popular beginner-friendly network of deep rock holes.

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‍It was used by Scouts and first-timers provided they stuck to instructions and went the right way following the signs. But John didn’t go the right way in the clay-lined labyrinth of rock that twisted into the darkness. Seven hundred feet in, he took a wrong turn.

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‍They started exploring at about 8pm, making their way through the channel the Big Slide. But then John, his brother and two mates decided to look for the Birth Canal, one of the cave's narrowest spaces in a dangerous area.

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‍John hunched his shoulders and led them into a waist-high hole 10in by 18in headfirst and quickly realised there was no place to turn around, but in the torchlight, he saw a crack in the rock ahead and thought he would have enough room to manipulate his body round and make his way back. So, he sucked in his chest to get through the remaining narrow space. 

‍Terrifyingly and within seconds, he found himself stuck upside down at a 70-degree angle, not being able to move an inch. His shocked brother raised the alarm.

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‍An hour later, knowing that John was upside down, in an unmapped area, rescuers started to work quickly. Susie Motola, a 5ft 3in expert caver arrived and worked for two hours, trying anything and everything she could think of to free him or at least make him comfortable as he struggled to breath and reporters from the Salt Lake Tribune and other titles arrived at the scene.

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‍When she finally took a break, another rescuer immediately took her place. After weighing up their options, the rescuers worked on building a pulley system while another caver named Ryan Shurtz squeezed his way to the jammed potholer.

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‍As John drifted in and out of consciousness, Ryan realised that asking him about his family helped him refocus. So, they rigged up a wire and speaker system so that his wife could tell him to keep fighting.

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‍Somehow, after 19 hours they managed to tie a rope around him but as they slowly tried to pull him up, the rope, tense with his weight, tore apart on the jagged rock face. A carabiner (steel rope fastener) hit Ryan in the face, and he passed out.

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‍His father, Dave Shurtz, climbed in and took over. But eventually, John still upside down, stopped speaking.

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‍When Dave resurfaced, he told the sheriff: “He has a heartbeat, but he struggles to breathe. You can't get someone down there before he dies."

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‍An hour later John was pronounced dead. He’d had a cardiac arrest. His body was never removed from Nutty Putty Cave. The entrance was permanently sealed with concrete, turning it into his final resting place with a memorial to him.

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‍He remains upside down.

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‍BOY WITH PITCHFORK
TAKES THE BISCUIT

‍I often come across articles in magazines from our Express chum Mark (Biscuits) Palmer, now freelance. Biscuits so called on the editorial floor of the Express, because he descends from the Huntley and Palmer empire, so much a part of our national history.

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‍I came across another of his features in a magazine the other day about rage and how he cursed when he got locked out of his Audi car. In the piece, he tells of his boyhood days at prep boarding school and a terrifying boy known for his rages, nicknamed Blackie, who once chased him with a pitchfork.

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‍Soft-centred Biscuit, who left the Express and became Travel Editor of the Mail, said: “I don’t think I have ever come across such rages in the last 70 years – although one Editor comes to mind!”

‍Who does he mean? Come on Mark, do tell.

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‍I’M A LADY, I IS! FANTASY WORLD OF HEAVY DRINKER TOTTERY TOTTIE

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‍TOTTIE FAY was famous and made headline news in the 1880s. She wasn’t a singer, actress or a musical star. But she was an entertainer.

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‍She was England’s top woman ‘drunk’ and her appearances were followed by news reporters in courts all over Britain.

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‍She drew crowds wherever she went and even magistrates became fond of her on her journey through over 500 court cases to the lunatic asylum. She was charming, sweet and attractive. And above all funny.

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‍“I am a lady I is, so please don’t jail me. I only ‘ad a couple, but I won’t do it again, sir!” she would say.

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‍Her stage was the courtroom, and she got roars of laughter from the gallery. Sometimes Tottie, aged 30, used other names — Lily Cohen, Lilian Rothschild, Violet St. John, Mabel Gray, Maud Legrand, and Lily Levant among them.

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‍She was always ‘drunk as a skunk’. And she always wore the same large and grubby, white large straw hat with faded flowers on top. That’s how she was recognised in the street. She loved flowers and was always talking to them.

‍When she had a crowd around her, she would do “a jolly dance” and they would clap and cheer. Cabbies would stop to watch her.

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‍The Portsmouth Evening News wrote on April 9, 1889: “Her record of appearances at Marlborough Street Police Court for being drunk and disorderly is so large, that a special book is kept for her.

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‍“Today, Tottie wore a cream-coloured bodice, trimmed with lace, a black skirt, with large dress-improver (material under the dress to make it look bigger) which became much disarranged by the narrowness of the dock, and a pair of dirty sand shoes. On her fingers, over her glove, there were five rings. And of course, her grubby hat was on her head.

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‍“The police officer had to pull her off the railings she was clutching! She was drunk and a crowd swelled.

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‍“When put into the dock, she made the most extravagant signs of grief, tears streaming down her face and claimed that the constable did not address her with respect.”

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‍When asked what she had to say to the charge of drunk and disorderly, Tottie gave one of her famous excuses explaining that news was sent to her that her landlady, a perfect lady, and just like her dear mamma in every respect, was dead.

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‍She felt almost paralysed with grief and to steady her nerves she had some drink; “but not more than any other lady would have taken under the circumstances.”

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‍Tottie always wore a "shabby ball gown" when out and faked an upper-class accent to trick hotel keepers into providing her with rooms without payment.

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‍She frequently stole items from the hotels where she managed to secure a roof over her head and sold them to pay for alcohol. As the years went on, Tottie drifted from prison to prison and even tried to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge in front of a crowd.

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‍While in one jail she tried to get Marylebone Station to send her the six potted plants she left in their care to water. But they refused. By this time people stopped laughing at her and newspaper reporters treated her with sympathy.

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‍In the end, Tottie was declared insane by the courts, and she died on February 1, 1908, in Horton Asylum aged 58. There were no crowds at her burial … and no flowers.

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‍DID YOU KNOW?

‍Winston Churchill once attended a party for VIP Mormons to build Britain’s relationships with diverse groups from abroad.

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‍The members of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints duly attacked the fizzy water and the orange juice with their accustomed gusto, while Churchill imbibed his usual tipples of Pol Roger champagne; Johnnie Walker scotch; cognac and or port.

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‍At some point, the chief Mormon, eyeing the great man’s glass, sarcastically observed: "Mr Churchill, the reason I do not drink is that alcohol combines the kick of the antelope with the bite of the viper!"

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‍Churchill fixed the Mormon with a wicked smile, and replied: "Really? All my life, I’ve been searching for a for a drink like that!" And left the room.

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‍TERRY MANNERS

‍27 April, 2026