LA-based ER doctors want county-wide dance music events bannedJauz Hard Summer

LA-based ER doctors want county-wide dance music events banned

Still suffering from the passing of two women at HARD Summer last month, Los Angeles continues to face scrutiny from county officials, and now, straight from the source, emergency room doctors. In light of the county’s decision to allow the annual HARD Day of the Dead to take place over Halloween weekend, Dr. Brian Johnston, chair of the emergency medicine department at White Memorial Medical Center, had some words to share on why EDM events should be banned in LA.

When Johnston is asked what he sees at the height of an electronic music event, he tells The Frame of the days when Insomniac held events at LA Memorial Coliseum, and 16 and 18-year-old kids having heart attacks was often a common sight. More disturbingly, he reports on once having treated an individual “who came in with a temperature of 108 [degrees], convulsing, destroyed all his skeletal muscles, he damaged his kidneys.” Johnston also recalls attending hearings on the “raves” that took place at the Coliseum, where he witnessed parents whose children “had suffered significant brain damage.” 

While the LA-based ER doctor doesn’t blame the music but the venues’ lack of proper security, he does take a firm stance on banning electronic music events in the county altogether. It should not simply be about the kids who lose their lives, he argues, but also those who are permanently damaged and “don’t make the headlines because they’re not dead.”

He continues: “And the Board of Supervisors is concerned about the First Amendment rights of people who want to put these festivals on. I would say that the one legal admonition, the one limit on free speech is: ‘Don’t yell fire in a theater.’ Because you would cause a stampede. I think what [they] are doing is filling the theater and then creating a stampede.”

Via: The Frame

Read More:

Live Nation cancels HARD’s A Night at Fairplex and downscales HARD Day of the Dead

HARD Day of the Dead reveals jaw-dropping 2015 lineup

HARD to impose attendance cap and 21+ rule for DOTD

 

 

Categories: