OREM — An intoxicated Provo man cut his chest with a knife and then splashed his blood around an Orem apartment Monday night, according to Orem police.

The 31-year-old man and a woman were drinking earlier in the evening and the man became intoxicated, the woman told police. At about 9 p.m., the man "freaked out" and started to call himself Satan, Orem Lt. Doug Edwards said.

The man grabbed what appeared to be a steak knife and started cutting up his chest, Edwards said. Photos showed about two dozen long slashes, some appearing to make shapes —a star, the letter A or H and possibly a heart.

The blood covered a large part of the kitchen floor and spattered on the refrigerator, walls, ceiling, into the bathroom and on the television and entertainment center in the living room.

"It was more blood than you would expect from what appear to be superficial wounds on his chest," Edwards said.

The man also hit and tried to choke the woman. When the victim tried to call for help, the man tore the phone out of the wall.

"He assaulted a woman in the apartment because, as Satan, she was better than he was and that was unacceptable," Edwards said. "When the officers arrived, the victim of the assault was so upset that she was hyperventilating and could only tell the officers what happened with great difficulty."

Officers found the man running outside the Village Park Apartments near 1000 N. State and took him to Timpanogos Regional Hospital, where he was treated and released. Officers used gloves to arrest the man as a precaution against blood-borne diseases.

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"As a matter of course anymore, the officers with any arrest usually glove up," Edwards said.

The man was booked into the Utah County Jail for investigation of assault, public intoxication and interruption of a communication device.

"We aren't sure if drugs were involved, but he had a high level of alcohol on board," Edwards said.


E-mail: twalch@desnews.com

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