SALT LAKE CITY — As the life support devices attached to Michael Bueno hissed and beeped, his mother ran her hand across her son’s forehead and scalp.
“I love you,” Cynthis Bueno said. “Mom’s here. Mom’s here, sweetie.
“I love you. Remember, I said I’d always be here for you.”
Michael Bueno attempted suicide Nov. 11 at the $1 billion prison that opened in 2022 in Salt Lake City. As of Wednesday, doctors were trying to determine if Bueno, 44, would recover enough brain function to breath again on his own.
It was the second attempt at the prison in less than two weeks. Oct. 30, Tyson Leyva died by suicide there. He was 38 years old and had three daughters.
His brother, Eric Leyva, remembers his brother as someone who “loved music, loved life at one time.”
Both the Leyva and Bueno families say their respective loved one asked prison staff for assistance. Eric Leyva says he also alerted the prison to problems with his brother.
Those claims echo findings by auditors in 2021 and 2023. They found “systematic deficiencies” in how healthcare was delivered at Utah’s prisons. In some cases, auditors found, inmates’ written requests for care were being ignored.
Marc Wisner, the director of Correctional Health Services for Utah’s prison system, said Wednesday that reviews regarding what happened to Leyva and Bueno have already begun. He could not speak specifically about their care due to medical privacy laws.
But Wisner appeared to choke up when he told FOX 13 News, “Suicide is not taken lightly…. We know it leaves a scare emotionally in people.”
He said the prison system has made progress in addressing the problems found by auditors, including allowing inmates to digitally submit requests for care over the tablets issued to them.
“If an inmate or incarcerated individual feels that they're not getting a response from us,” Wisner said, “they also have an opportunity to voice those concerns through grievances process, through their loved ones, through our family line.”
Tyson Leyva was serving a sentence for drug and stolen car offenses. Eric Leyva served a few months of his own sentence alongside his brother.
He asked Tyson Leyva whether he was taking medications for the various mental health disorders for which he had been diagnosed. Tyson Leyva said no, though Eric Leyva said his brother otherwise seemed OK.
“And I got out,” Eric Leyva said, “and the next time I talked to him on the phone, he was completely different.”
“His girlfriend was telling us that he was talking about killing himself,” Eric Leyva added.
“I knew something was wrong, and so I called the prison.”
It’s unclear what staff at the Salt Lake City prison did with the information about Leyva. Cynthia Bueno wants answers about her son’s care, too.
She provided FOX 13 News with a list of the medications Michael Bueno, who is serving a sentence for sodomy, was taking at the prison. It included prescriptions to treat bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. She says her son had never been diagnosed with those.
“All the sudden,” Cynthia Bueno said, “I noticed a deep change in him. He started to become paranoid. Trying to get the medication on his own, but he could not because it made him sick.
“So, he kept asking everybody that he could think of for help. Finally, he went in to see the doctor. The doctor said he had to stop because he was harassing everybody.
“Two weeks later, my son hung himself.”
Neither Bueno nor Leyva were in any sort of mental health unit or under suicide watches, their families say. The Utah Department of Health and Human Services, the agency Wisner works for, began overseeing healthcare at the prisons last year.
But the staff at the Utah Department of Corrections is who makes decisions about where to house offenders. It referred questions to Health and Human Services.
Wisner said three Utah prison inmates have died by suicide this year. He also acknowledged two attempts in two weeks is abnormal.
“If loved ones call,” Wisner said, “and we do this often, during a visit a parent comes in and says, ‘That didn’t go well, can someone go check on my son?’ Absolutely will do that.”
Eric Leyva was exasperated when asked how Utah can provide better inmate care.
“They definitely have to do something different,” he said, “because the way they the way they deal with any type of mental health in there, is wrong.”