For some people, nothing is more satisfying than pushing their personal limits and seeing to what extremes they can go. Whether that’s climbing a mountain or traversing untraversable terrain, there is no challenge some of us will not accept. For other people, nothing so lofty or exciting consumes their lives, but they are subject to accidents that may be just as extreme. In both cases, when things go really wrong, the results can be not just deadly but unsolvable and the victims are lost, unable to be located or retrieved ever again.
10. John Jones Died in Nutty Putty Cave
Nutty Putty Cave is located in Utah, and the name makes it seem almost cartoonish. Until 2009, it was open for exploration and it was favored by spelunkers of all ages and skills. Even Boy Scout troops would tour it. That changed on November 24, 2009. That was the day John Jones was lost. He remains in the cave to this day.
Jones had been an avid cave explorer since childhood. Like others before him, he likely crawled down through the mouth of the cave, into a canal and then down what people called the Big Slide. There was a lot of crawling involved in the cave, but it was generally considered easy, hence all the Boy Scout tours.
Jones was 26 years old and in good shape, though he hadn’t done much spelunking since childhood. He entered the cave with 9 others. He made his way to a place he thought he knew, crawling through a space that was 10 inches by 18 inches. He became stuck, upside down, unable to move forward or backward.
His family was unable to pull him free, and he was 400 feet into the cave. The others left for help. Within hours, over 100 people were trying to save him using a system of ropes and pulleys, though they could only see his feet.
The rescue effort failed. The strain on Jones’ heart was greater than normal at the angle at which he was trapped. He was pronounced dead of cardiac arrest after 27 hours of attempted rescue. Because his body could not be retrieved, the cave was sealed with concrete and a plaque in memoriam of Jones marks the site.
9. Green Boots and 150 Others on Everest
In all the world, few places represent the idea of conquering fear, conquering nature, and conquering life itself, like Mt. Everest. Those who can reach the top of the mountain are considered to have achieved greatness. But what of those who don’t make it back down? There are many of them.
The number changes over the years because thawing and cooling, as well as technology change to allow for some to be retrieved, back a decade ago there were over 200 bodies on Everest. Many would-be climbers die of exposure, of oxygen deprivation, or due to falls and accidents. Some, like the one called Green Boots, became landmarks for other climbers. This is because many bodies cannot be retrieved.
The cost of retrieving one body in 2017 was $200,000. That’s just dollars and cents with no accounting for the danger that the would-be rescuers face. Though warm weather has offered the chance to free up some bodies, others may never be reached due to the precarious positioning.
8. John Allen Chau is on Sentinel Island
There’s an island called North Sentinel Island in India in the Bay of Bengal. It’s one of the last truly isolated places on Earth. The people who live there, the Sentinelese, are an indigenous tribe that are legally protected and have made clear their lack of interest in meeting outsiders. This became terrifyingly apparent in 2017 when American missionary John Allen Chau attempted to convert the locals to Christianity.
Chau was aware that the local population was hostile. He’d been warned by fishermen to stay away. Despite this, he landed on the island in an attempt to befriend the population. Legally, no one is allowed to even approach the island. The tribe that lives there has had almost no contact with the outside world, and none in decades. They would have no immunity to diseases and they live a primitive and simple life.
When Chau arrived, the islanders attacked quickly. Witnesses saw Chau struck by an arrow. The tribes people later buried his body and authorities have determined it would be too dangerous to even attempt to retrieve it.
7. Clarabelle Lansing Was Sucked Out of a Plane
On April 28, 1988, an Aloha Airlines flight to Honolulu suffered a swift and catastrophic failure. Without warning, a massive section of the Boeing 737’s fuselage peeled off, causing an explosive decompression. An 18-foot section of the roof vanished in an instant and with it, flight attendant Clarabelle Lansing. She had just been serving drinks to passengers.
Sixty passengers on the flight were injured, but none fatally. Only Lansing was lost, pulled out in the blink of an eye. Her body was never found. An investigation afterward suggested that poor maintenance and age were the likely causes of the accident.
6. Two Climbers Were Lost on an Alaskan Mountain
Many things can potentially go wrong when climbing a mountain. Bad weather, equipment failure, rock slides and more are all risks. So are avalanches.
Back in 2018, climbers Marc-Andre Leclerc and Ryan Johnson were taking on the Mendenhall Towers, a pair of jagged peaks that reach 7,000 feet above some Alaskan ice fields. Both men were very experienced, but in 2018, all their skills couldn’t help them.
At some point, the men posted a photo from one of the peaks, having climbed a route that was not previously used by other climbers. However, they were never heard from again after that and search teams in helicopters were only able to locate the ropes the men had left behind.
Rescue efforts were continually dashed as the avalanche risk was deemed too high. The bodies of the two men were never even seen and despite numerous agencies offering aid, the rescue effort was abandoned after several months.
5. A Kelowna Hiker was Lost in a Creek
In 2011, Scott Lawler was hiking along a deer path with a friend near Kelowna, British Columbia. Lawler and his friend Daniel Lovegrove slipped and fell 200 feet into Monashee Creek. Both men died, but only Lovegrove’s body was ever recovered.
Search and Rescue teams went looking for the two men and, for a moment, they had located Lawler. He had become trapped in a logjam in the creek. During the rescue attempt, the jam broke apart and Lawler was lost again.
The entire creek bank collapsed, a massive segment some 12 to 15 feet long by eight feet high. A chasm was created, suspected to be around 10 feet deep and Lawler’s body was pulled into it before being covered by rocks, some weighing upwards of a ton. Combined with the current in the location, the prospect of retrieving the body became impossible.
4. Florida Man’s House was Swallowed by a Sinkhole
Unlike some of the people we’ve mentioned, Jeffrey Bush was not even close to courting danger when he lost his life. In fact, he was at home in bed. It was 2013 when a sinkhole opened under the Florida man’s home, swallowing the foundation under the room.
The bedroom collapsed, crushing Bush, but the remaining structure was deemed too unstable for rescue efforts. As time passed, the situation only got worse. What started as a 15 feet deep hole began to grow. By the next night, they estimated it was 100 feet deep.
Bush’s brother tried to rescue him, digging through the rubble in the ever-sinking structure until he himself needed to be rescued.
Authorities deemed the property so unstable that they destroyed both the house and the ones on either side of it. The hole even reappeared two years later. But because of the nature of the instability, rescue efforts were unable to proceed. Bush remained in the collapsed portion of his home in the sinkhole.
Today, trees grow on the land and a plaque was placed in his honor, but the ground is still unstable and no one can go there.
3. Valery Khodemchuk Was Entombed in Chernobyl
Valery Khodemchuk was an engineer and the first victim of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. He was on duty that night and in or around one of the pump rooms for reactor four. When the reactor blew, if he was where he was supposed to be and there’s no reason to believe he wasn’t, he likely would have been killed instantly.
His body was never found after the disaster, presumably buried under debris from the reactor explosion. Because of the nature of the disaster and the need to contain it quickly, there was simply no one anyone could practically look for him. One coworker, a man named Vladimir Shashenok, attempted to rescue his coworker but failed and died in the process. His body was retrieved, however.
As for Khodemchuk, he has since been entombed in what remains of the reactor. The reactor was encased in concrete after the disaster to prevent the spread of nuclear material and, as a result, Khodemchuk’s body was sealed in as well.
2. Devin Westenskow Was Lost in a Mine Shaft
Devin Westenskow was out exploring with some friends in Nevada in 2014. Somewhere northwest of Reno, he fell into the open shaft of an abandoned mine, falling 200 feet into the earth. Incredibly, he survived the fall, trapped under debris. A rescue effort was quickly mounted, but rescuers soon learned a dangerous fact – the shaft was incredibly unstable. Efforts to reach Westenskow were putting him at even greater risk of being crushed by rocks and putting the rescuers at risk of the same.
Two attempts were made to descend. On one attempt, a rock hit the potential rescuer with such force it split his hard hat open. The 100-year-old shaft was just too unstable. The mission had to be called off, even though Westenskow was still alive.
Authorities and family could only wait, watching via camera as the father of five succumbed to his injuries and passed away. The decision was not one everyone agreed with, but the result happened just the same. Authorities planned to permanently seal the shaft with Westenskow inside.
1. Volcanologist David Johnston Was Lost when Mount St. Helens Erupted
The job of a volcanologist isn’t for everyone. Also, most of us probably don’t even know what it fully entails. Volcanoes, probably. Much of their work is studying emissions and rocks and seismology. And sometimes that involves physically going to an active volcano to take readings and make observations. As you can imagine, that has the potential to be dangerous.
Volcanologist David Johnston was studying Mount St. Helens back in 1980 just before it erupted. And by “just before” we mean literally moments before. He was camped out on a ridge five miles north of the volcano when it exploded. He was on the radio at the time and his final broadcast, which became his final words, were “Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!” They received it just as the volcano was erupting.
The eruption blew the top 1000 feet of the cone off the volcano. Magma overtook a landslide of debris traveling at 300 miles per hour. For six miles around the summit, an entire forest vanished. Johnston was never recovered, though parts of his RV and camp were.