22 hours ago
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Collin Leonard, KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY (KSL.com) — Seven women took to the stand in a preliminary hearing for former Salt Lake Fire Capt. Christopher David Burk, who is accused of using emergency medical training classes as a pretext for the sexual abuse of his students.
Allegations against Burk, 46, span several locations, including where he taught CPR and EMT certification classes — Salt Lake Community College, Utah Valley University, and Canyons Technical Education Center — a Salt Lake fire station in the Sugar House neighborhood, and KSL’s downtown Salt Lake office building.
Going into the hearing, Burk, dressed in the faded blue and white stripes of the Davis County Jail, faced 14 counts of forcible sexual abuse, a second-degree felony, and two counts of attempted forcible sexual abuse, a third-degree felony. The charges ballooned considerably since he was arrested on Jan. 29, after which five more women contacted police.
Sandy police detective Anthony Griffiths testified Tuesday that after trying to get in contact with Burk twice in December 2024 and sending Herriman police to his residence, he had to take more extreme measures for an arrest. He petitioned a judge for a sealed arrest warrant, the first time in his almost decadelong career, and enlisted the joint Violent Fugitive Apprehension Team to surveil the residence and arrest the fire captain on a traffic stop.
Much of what the women reported on the witness stand followed a similar pattern. They said they tried to convince themselves Burk’s contact with them was “professional,” and they trusted him as a teacher.
Burk was hired as a basic EMT certification class instructor at Salt Lake Community College in the summer of 2024, according to the course coordinator.
A woman taking a class that summer said instructors had prepared her that it was a “hands-on class,” but she said Burk touched her breasts three to four times while demonstrating how to check for broken ribs in a patient.
Burk then offered her a “ride-along,” where she shadowed him through a 12-hour shift at a fire station. Her family was struggling financially, she said, and she saw it as a good opportunity to potentially get a job right out of class.
Only two calls came in during the shift, she said, and for “most of it, we were alone in the back room” practicing assessments. He continued to bring her to more remote rooms in the firehouse, she told the court, and “the farther away we got from people, the more uncomfortable I started to feel.”
In a second-floor conference room, alone, she said Burk again touched her breasts during a rib assessment demonstration and had her find his femoral artery pulse, located in the groin area, before offering to find hers.
An employee within the EMT program told investigators, “Students are not taught how to check femoral pulses, nor are they physically shown how to do so.”
The student said she went to the bathroom, and “kind of broke down, just realizing the situation I had been put into … I felt like I couldn’t leave.”
Another student from the fall 2024 semester also testified about inappropriate touching by Burk.
The next semester, another student said she was taken to a separate room at the Murray Police Training Center, where SLCC held the EMT course, for extra instruction from Burk. “Everything we were doing had to do with sexual parts of the body,” she said.
It was past the 10 p.m. night class and they “were the only ones in the building that I knew,” according to the woman.
The man again, demonstrating checks for broken ribs, demonstrated his “techniques” on her, she said, going underneath her clothing. “He was feeling and he was squeezing,” she said, “each time he went further.”
He laid down and told her she could find his femoral artery, under his pants, she said, to which she refused. He touched her, showing her where it was, she said, and pulled her against him to demonstrate “how to resuscitate a pregnant woman.”
The student left the building and said, “I stayed in my car for about 15 minutes and I just cried. … I had been violated.” She dropped out immediately following the incident.
In the room, surveillance cameras gave her comfort that everything had been recorded. “I was relieved that everything he did to me was caught,” she said, but after reporting, investigators found the cameras were controlled by the police, not the college, and turned off at 6 p.m.
Burk continued inviting one woman to classes he held at Utah Valley University and elsewhere, for extra help and practice, according to testimony. Afterward, she said he would teach her how to listen to “lung sounds,” and helped her assess a broken pelvis, touching her under her clothing, before having her do the same to him.
“I was afraid to report any of it,” she said, “Chris was my only support at the time.”
A 17-year-old senior in high school, participating in a EMT course at Canyons Technical Education Center, testified that Burk touched her inappropriately during an assessment in November 2024 while they were alone for a final exam. “I thought it was weird,” she said Tuesday, “cause no one touches me there.”
Two women participating in a CPR class sponsored by their companies say they were touched inappropriately during Heimlich maneuver demonstrations. “he was completely pressed up against me,” one woman said on the stand.
One count of forcible sexual abuse was dropped, but the judge ordered him to stand trial on the rest of the charges. A scheduling conference will be held this month, to set dates for trial.
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