Eight people are in a critical condition following a suspected drug overdose at a rave in Melbourne on Saturday night.
Mobile Intensive Care Ambulance Paramedics working at the Hardmission Festival, which took place at Flemington, treated the patients before they were conveyed to hospital.
“What appears to have happened is quite a number of people have overdosed or had a reaction to an MDMA derivative drug,” Victorian Ambulance Union Secretary Danny Hill said.
He said seven of the patients were placed into an induced coma and required breathing tubes.
“It’s quite a high level treatment that our paramedics perform and its reserved for our most time critical patients and patients in life threatening health conditions,” he said.
“It’s probably quite rare that we would see this amount of people needing such aggressive treatment.”
Ambulance Victoria said the patients were transported to several hospitals including Sunshine Hospital, Royal Melbourne Hospital, The Austin Hospital, Footscray Hospital and St Vincent’s Hospital.
Mr Hill said paramedics treat patients for drug-related issues regularly at rave like parties and that MDMA was one of the most common drugs they saw.
“It’s no secret that these drugs circulate at rave parties,” he said.
“Often there are a lot of other chemicals and other medications mixed in with it and clearly whatever people have taken have had quite a negative effect.”
He said it highlights the need for better drug education “whether it’s pill checking or pill testing”.
“It’s just deadly,” Mr Hill said.
“These drugs aren’t made in a batch of seven or eight so it’s terrifying to think that these drugs are out there and could do enormous harm to a lot of other people.”
According to Mr Hill, Ambulance Victoria were short staffed on the night and had to send out a text message to get additional paramedics to assist.