The medical team on site at last weekend’s Pemberton Music Festival, one of B.C.’s largest outdoor music festivals, says there were no drug overdoses and very few trips to the hospital.
Rockdoc’s tally follows a warnings last week ahead of the festival from health officials concerned about B.C.’s fentanyl crisis.
A total of eight people were transported to hospital during the festival for typical injuries and conditions including diabetes, simple fractures, kidney stones, other various conditions, said Kaitlyn Burke, general manager of Rockdoc Consulting Inc.
Burke said nearly 200,000 revellers turned out for the festival, and with such a large crowd, health conditions and emergencies were expected.
For 10 years, Rockdoc has worked to ensure the safety of participants at numerous mass gatherings and every one of the Pemberton festivals, she said.
“We are pleased to report again this year, the vast majority of festival participants were safely cared for on the event site, assuring that the regional emergency services were preserved to support the local communities,” she said.
On Monday, as crews were packing up the festival, a 21-year-old West Vancouver man was taken to hospital in serious condition after a stabbing incident involving two employees of the festival.
Whistler Mounties said the stabbing was the most serious incident during the festival.
Last week, B.C.’s provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall cautioned party people about mixing illicit drugs because of the ongoing fentanyl health crisis and the possibility that recreational drugs like ecstasy may be laced with the potentially deadly opioid.
The warning followed a coroner’s report that showed in the first half of 2016 there were 371 deaths from illicit drug overdose, an increase of 74.2 per cent from the same time period in 2015.
Sixty per cent of those deaths showed fentanyl detected in toxicology tests, either alone or, more often, in combination with other illicit drugs.
ticrawford@postmedia.com
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