A 20-year-old man is in critical condition, and eight other people have been hospitalised after a suspected mass-overdose at the I Am Hardstyle dance party at Melbourne‘s Festival Hall overnight.
Emergency services were called to the venue between 11 and 11.30pm, and eight revellers were treated at the scene in a St John’s Ambulance tent, while a ninth collapsed nearby, and was subsequently treated and taken to hospital.
The nine were taken to various hospitals around Melbourne, with several in critical condition upon arrival. Ambulance Victoria chief Paul Holman told media that he considers several of the patients “lucky they didn’t die on the spot.”
Holman told ABC News:
“These people were hyperthermic – so extremely hot, they can’t regulate their temperature – they were unconscious … unrousable, they needed to be intubated and they needed to be ventilated. They were non-breathing patients.”
He said that the affected revelers at I Am Hardstyle may have consumed a bad batch of pills, and Ambulance Victoria is “particularly concerned” that more may be circulating in the community over the Australia Day long weekend.
“[There are] a number of parties and events today and tomorrow and given what happened last night it’s clear these drugs are circulating,” Holman told media. “Our message to young people is simple. Don’t take these drugs. These are poisons and they will kill you.”
As of today, St Vincent’s Hospital has confirmed that a 20-year-old man remains in critical condition in the Intensive Care Unit, and a woman, also aged 20, is currently being kept in the hospital for observation.
