This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A Roy man is accused of child abuse after he allegedly tried to kill himself with car exhaust in his garage but did not protect his 15-month-old daughter from exposure.
Officers went to the man's house, near 5700 South 4000 West, on Tuesday afternoon after receiving reports that he had threatened suicide, said Roy police spokesman Bryce Weir. The man, 25, had taken sleep aids and started his car in the garage because he "wanted to go to sleep to kill himself," police wrote in charges filed Wednesday.
Officers heard a child crying in the house and found a 15-month-old in a room above the garage. Carbon monoxide had filled the garage and house, and the father, toddler and four officers all required hospital treatment.
The man allegedly told police that he did not have a plan to protect his daughter and said "hopefully" someone would have found her, investigators wrote.
The six patients who inhaled carbon monoxide in the house are expected to survive, but if the father and toddler had been exposed to the carbon monoxide "much longer, both of them would have passed away," Weir said.
The man was charged with second-degree felony child abuse and four misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment.