The Alta View Hospital hostage incident began the night of September 20, 1991 when Richard Worthington, armed with a shotgun, a handgun and sticks of dynamite arrived at Alta View Hospital in Sandy, UT in an attempt to kill Dr. Glade Curtis who had performed a tubal ligation on his wife.
After planting the dynamite outside, Worthington entered the Hospital's Women's Center and took two nurses, a patient, Christan Downey, who was giving birth to her first child, her sister Carre, the baby's father Adam, and two newborn babies hostage (Caitlin, the daughter of Christan and Adam, was born during the siege). Dr. Curtis saw what was happening and hid in his office, where he called the police. When the police arrived nurse Karla Roth attempted to wrestle Worthington's shotgun from his hands but failed. Worthington then shot and killed Roth.
Worthington held the hostages for eighteen hours. He was talked into surrendering and releasing the remaining hostages by Sergeant Don Bell and Detective Jill Candland of the Salt Lake City police department who were assisted by a hostage inside, a nurse named Susan Woolley. Worthington was sentenced to thirty-five years in prison for the murder of Karla Roth, he committed suicide in his prison cell on November 11, 1993.
The incident was portrayed in the 1992 TV movie Deliver Them From Evil: The Taking of Alta View starring Harry Hamlin and Teri Garr.
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