Dad accused of taking 3 kids on hike in dangerous conditions; charged with child abuse, torture
SALT LAKE CITY (KSTU) - A man in Utah is facing child abuse and torture charges after authorities said he took his three young children on a difficult hike during a snowstorm.
“Not an easy hike that you would take a child upon,” Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said.
Micah Smith is facing six felony charges after investigators say he took his three young children to hike up the “Broads Fork” trail up Big Cottonwood Canyon, leading to serious injuries and a rescue.
“Search and rescue folks for them. This hike was a hard hike. This was not an easy hike. This is one that even as trained professionals, they suffered injury trying to respond to it,” Gill said.
The indictment said Smith and his three kids, ages two, four and eight, set out on the trail at 10 a.m. Oct. 11.
Investigators said Smith did not check the weather and they were caught in a storm, several thousand feet up the mountain. The indictment said they took shelter through the night under a rock.
Salt Lake County Sheriff’s got the call for search and rescue on Oct. 12.
The indictment said once the team found Smith along the trail, they said he was acting “odd” and told them that one of his kids had died.
“Two of the younger children had fallen down and taken head trauma, including one who had stopped breathing,” Gill said.
In an interview with the eight-year-old girl, investigators said she told them her dad pressed them to go on after she said she was scared. As conditions deteriorated overnight, she said her dad taught her CPR to keep her brother alive.
“To try to save her brother and to also continue to go through that experience where she communicated fear and concern and they were told to march on,” Gill said.
Investigators said Smith’s wife sent him text messages urging him to get the children down from the mountain before dark, at one point texting him “child endangerment”.
Search and rescue said the children were not wearing much clothing.
According to the indictment, a video from Smith’s phone recorded one of his children asking if they were going to freeze to death.
The four-year-old is still in the hospital. Investigators said his body temperature when he arrived at the hospital was 62.6 degrees. They said he had a stroke requiring part of his skull to be removed and a drain to be placed.
“The other part that was really critical to us was that the children were afraid,” Gill said. “Psychological and emotional effects.”
Gill said that the allegations at this time are three charges are child torture and three for abuse.
“They were going over rocks that were slipping,” he said. “We were having to grab onto vegetation as they were trying to hike as they were going further up.”
Gill said the children are getting the medical care they need and Child Protective Services is aware of this case. The indictment said Smith was also arrested for domestic violence in the weeks after the incident.
“After this incident, on Nov. 10, the defendant was trespassed for primary children’s hospital for interfering with one of his children’s care and for tampering, allegedly with that equipment,” Gill said.
Smith has been booked into jail without bail.
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