Two people died at the Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas. EDC is a house/techno music festival (known for it’s heavy drug use), and now the concert coordinators are worried about the future of the event because of the deaths. Click below to find out what happened.
Organizers of a huge electronic music party in Las Vegas don’t think the deaths of two revelers last week will threaten the event’s future there.
Erika Raney, spokeswoman for Electric Daisy Carnival producer Insomniac, said her company goes out of its way to provide ample security and medical personnel, and was not responsible for the deaths.
“We are deeply saddened by the two tragedies that occurred last week in Las Vegas outside Electric Daisy Carnival,” she told The Associated Press in a statement. “The two tragedies occurred beyond the festival’s walls as well as beyond Insomniac’s control and these incidents will not threaten the future of EDC in Las Vegas.”
A 31-year-old Florida man died Saturday at a Las Vegas hospital from injuries suffered when he was struck by a truck when leaving the rave Monday morning. Friends say the man, whose name hasn’t been released, had been drinking before the accident.
Authorities confirmed Friday that Emily McCaughan, a pre-med student at the University of Arizona, died early Monday after falling from her 27th floor Las Vegas hotel room to a third-floor roof.
Family members told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the 22-year-old McCaughan suffered paranoid delusions after taking ecstasy at the three-day festival, which drew roughly 320,000 people before ending last Monday morning.
“Damn it, they (drugs) are just killers every single time,” family spokeswoman Mignonne Walstad told the newspaper. “Emily wasn’t a drug addict, it was just a tragic accident.”
McCaughan’s father, Richard, said he can’t believe his daughter would have used drugs and he suspects foul play.
The Clark County coroner’s office has not announced a cause of death, and police are investigating he circumstances of her fall.
Raney said all Insomniac festivals have a zero-tolerance policy against drugs and a strictly enforced policy barring those under the age of 18 from entering.
“It is a known fact that individuals who choose to partake in illicit drug behavior may suffer unexpected tragic consequences,” she said. “We hope that our fans carefully consider the decisions they make and how those decisions impact their own safety and the well-being of those around them.”
The Florida man struck by the truck was within the care of two trauma doctors within minutes of the accident, she said, a response time otherwise unheard of had he not been in close proximity of the festival and its medical staff.
“Electric Daisy Festival, in many respects, is one of the safest places to be in Las Vegas during the event weekend’s operating hours,” Raney said. “With law enforcement, private security teams, and fully staffed medical facilities housing doctors, nurses and emergency medical personnel, the venue functions like a small city.”
The deaths are the latest in a string of fatalities linked to the festival.
The rave was shunned in Los Angeles in 2010 following a 15-year-old girl’s fatal drug overdose. That party also resulted in more than 226 people receiving emergency medical treatment and 114 arrests for misconduct, drug possession and other charges.
Last year, a Texas teenager died during an Electric Daisy Carnival in Dallas plagued by drug arrests.
Despite the festival’s troubled past, Las Vegas has warmly welcomed the Electric Daisy Carnival since it moved there last year.
Arrest and medical call totals for the latest festival in Las Vegas haven’t been released.
The Electric Daisy Carnival is the largest electronic music party in the United States, complete with a towering Ferris Wheel, amusement park rides, celebrity disc jockeys and electronic music heavyweights.
