Alta View Hospital hostage incident
The Alta View Hospital hostage incident began on the night of September 20, 1991, when Richard Worthington, armed with a shotgun, a .357 Magnum 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.
Worthington entered the Hospital's Women's Center and took as hostages two nurses, a patient giving birth, her sister, the father, and two newborn babies hostage. 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. She was successful, but did not know he had two guns. As she ran away, Worthington shot her in the back with the handgun. Roth died almost instantly.[1]
Worthington held the hostages for eighteen hours. He was talked into surrendering and releasing the remaining hostages by the Sandy City police. Worthington surrendered without a fight, allowing everyone to walk out without any further injuries. Worthington was sentenced to thirty-five years in prison for the murder of Karla Roth, and later committed suicide in his prison cell on November 11, 1993.[2]
The incident was portrayed in the 1992 TV movie Deliver Them From Evil: The Taking of Alta View, starring Harry Hamlin and Teri Garr.[3]
On June 25th 2016, episode two of In an Instant's second season focused on survivors of the incident with dramatic reenactments entitled "Murder in the Maternity Ward."