Content
Skip to Main ContentAccessibility Help
Kitchener-Waterloo

24 Ever After Festival attendees taken to hospital for drugs, alcohol

Paramedics took 24 Ever After Festival attendees to the hospital over the course of the weekend. The number of patients is not uncommon, paramedics say.

Number of festivalgoers taken to hospital not uncommon, paramedics say

CBC News ·
Musician Dion Timmer tweeted this photo from the Ever After Music Fest at Bingemans on the weekend. (@diontimmermusic/Twitter)

Paramedics took 24 Ever After Festival goers to the hospital, all with alcohol and drug related health concerns.

All festival goers taken to hospital were admitted, paramedics said.

That is up from 12 in 2016, but Kevin Petendra, the region's deputy chief of paramedic services, said it's still not a surprising number.

"For an event such as this, that's not uncommon to have that many patients transported to the hospital," Petendra said.

Ever After is an electronic dance music festival held annually at Bingemans.

Paramedics are not the primary medical first aid providers at the event, but are there to support those doing first aid and determine if anyone needs to go to the hospital. For the event, there are two ambulance crews for a total of four paramedics and one supervisor each day.

Paramedics were on site from 5 p.m. Friday night when the event started until Sunday at 11 p.m.

Petendra said it's hard for paramedics to break down how many specifically were for alcohol and how many were drug-related.

"It actually could be a combination of both," he said.

"If you're talking about 15,000 and 20,000 18 to 25-year-olds, you're bound to have more consumption of drugs and alcohol for these events," he said. "With the attendance getting larger, I believe our call volume is getting more."

CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices|About CBC News
Corrections and clarifications|Submit a news tip|