Re: Nutty Putty Cave (utah county, utah)

"[email protected]" <[email protected]> Wed, 29 Mar 2023 00:27:17 -0700 (PDT)
Newsgroups alt.caving
Message-ID <[email protected]>
On Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 2:17:34=E2=80=AFAM UTC-7, Mike S Goodmann wr=
ote:

> I concur completely with your last sentence. I find it outrageous that th=
e cave had to be sealed in concrete because a hotshot med. student couldn't=
 read the cave map correctly!

Having been in the cave once I can see how somehow who doesn't understand, =
recognize, or doesn't have a chaperone to explain the scale of the map, if =
they had one, against the actual size of the cave. A huge amount of the cav=
e is full of squeezes and chambers that even short/thin amateurs would have=
 had trouble in, so I would otherwise understand someone getting a bit conf=
used where they may be at. This guy was at 15 stone, 6'1" tall. Then the lo=
cal and then even national media sensationalized it into a ticking time bom=
b story, which it ultimately was

The cave was on SITLA land, which those guys can't be bothered to manage an=
ything, and they had already had rescues in the past with it with some boy =
scout troops. Factor in the Utah culture and angle of the family and they h=
ad a cement mixer up there practically the next day and capping the mountai=
n with a bronze memorial

It's odd to me that they wouldn't let things settle then go in later for re=
covery, but they dynamited the system of tubes he was in. A lot of families=
 would want something different I would think. It was also odd to me the wi=
fe (while pregnant when it happened) went on to marry another guy not long =
later (big Utah thinking cap)