Paramedics transported 15 people from this weekend’s Chasing Summer music festival to the hospital for suspected substance abuse issues, Calgary EMS said Monday.
“It can only actually truly be determined in hospital what any given patient has ingested,” EMS spokesperson Stuart Brideaux said. “It wasn’t the case that our paramedic staff were required to give Narcan (naloxone) to any of these 15 patients.”
Brideaux said five patients were in serious condition at the time of transport; none were in life-threatening condition.
Despite an appeal from public health officials that drug overdose medications be allowed into the grounds, festival organizers decided personal naloxone kits were not allowed at Chasing Summer.
Northern Alberta’s Big Valley Jamboree country festival introduced a new policy this year, allowing attendees to bring their own such kits.
Patrons of the WayHome Music and Arts Festival in southern Ontario were able to trade syringes of the opioid overdose antidote for a nasal spray that has the same effect at the end of July. Naloxone kits were also permitted onto the grounds of Toronto’s VELD Music Festival.
In 2016, 10 people had to be taken to hospital for drug or alcohol-related issues after attending the Chasing Summer Music Festival.
The year before, 17 people were taken to hospital from the same festival for drug-related issues.
READ MORE: 17 people taken to hospital from Calgary music festival for substance abuse issues
The 2017 Chasing Summer Music Festival ran Aug. 5 and 6 at the Max Bell Centre.
With files from Global’s Heather Yourex-West
Comments