Spelunker trapped upside-down dies

SALT LAKE CITY - The brother of a man who died early yesterday trapped 700 feet inside a Utah cave said his family was remarkably strong but struggled to make sense of what happened.

John Jones, 26, of Stansbury Park, Utah, died nearly 28 hours after he became stuck upside-down in Nutty Putty Cave, a popular spelunking site about 80 miles south of Salt Lake City.

His death is the first known fatality at the cave, according to the Utah County Sheriff's Office.

"We all were very optimistic and hopeful. But it became increasingly clear last night after he got restuck that there weren't very many options left," Jones' brother, Spencer Jones, 30, of San Francisco, told the Associated Press.

Workers at one point had freed John Jones, but a rope and pulley system failed and he became stuck a second time.

"We thought he was in the clear and then when we got the news that he had slipped again. That's when we started to get scared," Spencer Jones said.

He had a wife and 8-month-old daughter and was a second-year medical student at the University of Virginia.

A recovery effort to extract John Jones' body from the cave was on hold as the sheriff's office tried to determine how best to proceed, Sgt. Spencer Cannon said.

It is unclear when the effort will resume. Rescue teams had been using drilling equipment to try to free Jones from the cave. Cannon said recovery work could be more aggressive than a rescue.

John Jones was part of a group of 11 people exploring the cave passages. The 6-foot-tall, 190-pound spelunker got stuck with his head at an angle below his feet. At times more than 50 rescuers were involved in trying to free him.