A 25-year-old Washington man accused of putting his 6-week-old daughter in a 10-degree freezer for about an hour to stop her crying was sentenced Friday to 16 years in prison.

Prosecutor Mark Lindquist says Tyler Deutsch pleaded guilty on Jan. 31 to first-degree assault for beating his infant daughter and putting her in the freezer. She has fully recovered, but the prosecutor calls the crime horrible and inexplicable.

Authorities say the child’s core temperature fell to 85 degrees in the freezer, after Deutsch put her there and then went to his bedroom and fell asleep. She also had a broken arm and leg and a head injury.

The mother, who had left the baby in his care, saw Deutsch pull her out of the freezer as she was returning home and called 911.