SALT LAKE CITY — A Salt Lake man faces criminal charges accusing him of causing near fatal injuries to an 18-month-old boy.
Jake Ryan Korpi, 20, was charged Friday in 3rd District Court with child abuse, a second-degree felony.
A mother told police that in August, she went to a friend’s house and left her son on the couch asleep with her boyfriend, Korpi, watching him while she went on a motorcycle ride with her friend.
“About 15 minutes into the ride, she received a call from Korpi that (the baby) was puking and foaming at the mouth,” according to charging documents.
By the time she got back to the house, the baby was “completely limp.” At the hospital, doctors treated the baby for head, eye and face injuries, as well as bruising to his genitals and seizures, the charges state. During surgery, two tears along the sagittal sinus in his head were discovered.
“Based upon a full clinical evaluation, these injuries are consistent with near-fatal inflicted trauma,” the charging documents say.
When Korpi was interviewed, he said the child was tossing and turning and when he sat up on the lip of the couch, he fell back on the couch and then “slingshot himself forward off the couch” and hit his head on a Nerf gun, the charges state. Korpi said the boy started to breathe funny and blood started coming out of his mouth and then went “lifeless,” prompting him to call the boy’s mother.