Alta View Hospital hostage incident

The Alta View Hospital hostage incident began September 20, 1991, when Richard Worthington, armed with a shotgun, a .357 Magnum revolver, and sticks of dynamite arrived at Alta View Hospital in Sandy, Utah, in an attempt to kill Dr. Glade Curtis who had performed a tubal ligation on his wife.[1][2]

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.[3] Curtis saw what was happening and hid in his office, where he called the police.[3] After Worthington took two staff members to the parking lot, the police told him to free and nurse Karla Roth attempted to wrestle Worthington's shotgun from his hands and was fatally shot.[2][3]

Worthington held the hostages for eighteen hours.[3] 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.[2][3] Worthington was sentenced to thirty-five years in prison for the murder of Roth, and later committed suicide in his prison cell on November 11, 1993.[4]

The incident was portrayed in the 1992 TV movie Deliver Them From Evil: The Taking of Alta View, starring Harry Hamlin and Teri Garr.[5]