Explorer films caving nightmare in anxiety-inducing footage

A curious explorer almost ended up trapped within the tight corridors of a cave after a trick of the light drew him into a claustrophobic nightmare.

There aren't many extreme hobbies that induce anxiety quite like spelunking does. Take the hit horror film The Descent for a case in point: a film where the bloodsucking beasts that lie waiting in an underground network for our cave-diving heroines and anti-heroines pale in comparison to the first act of squeezing, sliding and crawling through incredibly tight crevices.

Those who try to navigate the tightest maze-like cave networks that creep deep below ground level are certainly brave, but our explorer in question brought viewers to extreme levels of anxiety with his exploration of PettyJohn's Cave in Georgia.

Edward, who is part of the 'ActionAdventureTwins', found himself as close to stuck as possible after travelling through a tight waterlogged section of the cave. The water was so still in the section that Edwards took the reflection of the tunnel in the water as a sign that the tunnel would eventually open up - it did not. In fact, like so many in-cave illusions, the tunnel simply tightened to the point where Edward felt trapped.

ActionAdventureTwins/YouTube

Thankfully, after a number of nerve-wracking minutes, Edward was able to turn himself around by digging at the rocks beneath him and find his way back to eventually escape.

Edward managed to escape a similar fate to a true real-life horror story: the Nutty Putty Cave incident.

Utah's Nutty Putty Cave was sealed off in 2009 following the death of cave-diver John James - and this is where it gets hard to read.

While exploring the cave with a large team of nine who ventured into other tunnels of the cave, James was turned around and found a dead end after mistakenly believing the tunnel he was crawling through was widening up. James persisted with his struggling crawl until he couldn't carry on, and had crawled straight into a vertical crack that ensured he wouldn't be able to go back on himself.

In short, he'd need a rescue, and for that'd he'd need to wait.

Eventually, his brother, Joshua, was able to reach him, and escape the cave to call for help. Local rescue volunteers arrived, but they could not extract James due to his position. He was face down in a vertical crevice and only his feet could be reached. He couldn't be pulled out due to the position of his feet, as well as the low cave tunnel ceiling above the fissure where he lay. As more rescuers arrived, an attempt was made to drill through to James, but this was a slow procedure, and only one person at a time could physically access John James, who at this point had been trapped for around 19 hours.

He was able to receive a two-way radio to speak to his wife, but was experiencing a great difficulty in breathing and remaining conscious due to his position and the forces gravity and pressure were applying to his body. Rescuers had been able to install and rig a pully system to extract James, but this failed after pulling him some way out of the hole - and tragically dropped James deeper into the crevice. The exhausted rescuers couldn't fully reach James after this, and they worried after his responses to their questions completely faded away. A medical professional eventually reached John James and pronounced him dead after over 27 hours stuck within the Nutty Putty Cave complex. State authorities sealed his body within the cave with concrete, and a plaque was laid outside to commemorate the explorer.

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