NEWS: CA man dead, 7 hospitalized after San Francisco area rave

[RavenousBlonde]

(Mod Note: This has been posted in DITM, but I thought it should be cross posted here as well. Did anyone here attend this event?)

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_15198726?nclick_check=1

Santa Clara man dies from overdose at SF-area rave

Five in critical condition after music festival
By Joshua Melvin and Sean Webby [email protected]
Posted: 05/31/2010 06:23:51 PM PDT
Updated: 06/01/2010 12:18:39 PM PDT

Authorities were working Monday to determine whether tainted drugs played a role in the death of a 23-year-old Santa Clara mechanic and the hospitalization of seven others after a massive electronic music festival at the Cow Palace Saturday.
Anthony Mata was rushed to the hospital because of an apparent drug overdose and died Sunday night, said Daly City police Capt. Cory Roay. Of the seven other people, five were listed in critical condition Monday with symptoms including internal bleeding and kidney failure. The two remaining partygoers who became ill were in stable condition. They were among 16,500 people who packed the POP 2010 The Dream festival on Saturday night.

Because of the severity of the victims' reactions to the drug, authorities began to suspect that they may be tainted in some way. Police were awaiting results Monday from Poison Control Center and San Francisco Department of Health experts who tested the drugs for lethal impurities, police said.

Tears and questions

San Mateo County Narcotics Task Force officials seized 800 Ecstasy pills and undisclosed quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine at the event. The task force ran a drug sting operation at the festival. The two victims in stable condition told police that they didn't buy their drugs at the event and didn't know any of the other patients.
Mata's grieving family had no answers Monday, just tears and questions.
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They kept imagining him cruising in his black souped-up Subaru, shifting his six-speed smoothly through the hills above his Santa Clara home. But the auto mechanic's body was at the San Mateo County Coroner's office, awaiting an autopsy.

Standing around his beloved 2004 Impreza STI parked in the driveway, they wondered aloud about the tragic mystery. Was he poisoned? Did he overdose on a highly potent party drug nicknamed "Molly" — a reportedly highly pure variant of Ecstasy?

Mata enjoyed his beer and liked to party as much as anyone his age, they said, but he was no druggie. "No matter what, we love him, and he will be terribly missed," said his aunt, Marie Arellano.

They described him as being devoted to his family, and he would use his car to drive his 15-year-old brother, Ethan, around or go pick up groceries for his grandmother as well as to cruise.

Mata was a graduate of Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill and was attending De Anza College for a certified mechanics license while working as a mechanic at Piercey Toyota in Milpitas. His family said when he wasn't driving or working, he often could be found his room surrounded by his collections of Air Jordans and Oakland A's hats — playing a video racing game.

"He would always look for an excuse to go driving," said Manny Arellano, his cousin. "He used to listen to trance music, and he would say it would clear his mind, to get away from it all."

Mata bought his Subaru to emulate his older cousin's silver version. His cousin posted the news of his death on a Subaru enthusiasts website — I-club.com — where the discussion roped in some posters who said they were at the Cow Palace rave. They described it as stiflingly hot and chaotic and said there were rumors of rat poison going around.

Arellano thanked people for their posted prayers: "It's just crazy,'' he posted back. "It's like when we left from the hospital, it felt like we were leaving or forgetting him there ... he looked up to me I know ... he was always trying to be like me and I always kept him out of trouble and in a way seems like I failed him.''
This is not the first time families have grieved after a rave-type event at the Cow Palace. In 2002, two people took fatal doses at the venue during an electronic music concert, though the drugs didn't appear to be tainted. There have also been dozens of arrests made each year at these events which feature a lineup of DJs and elaborate light shows. At Saturday's party, police arrested 68 adults and five juveniles on suspicion of drug sales or possession, wrote task force Cmdr. Marc Alcantara in a statement. Police also seized $5,000 in cash from the people taken into custody, who were primarily from outside of the Bay Area.

'Heartfelt sympathy'

In response to the problems from previous years Daly City officials have asked Cow Palace organizers to prohibit large electronic music events, police said, but the shows have continued. Party organizer Skills DJ, based in Oakland, released a statement Monday afternoon expressing "heartfelt sympathy" for Mata and those who had been hospitalized. The statement, issued by owner Jason Sperling, said his company had worked closely and cooperatively with law enforcement during the event and had contracted to have an ambulance and medical workers on site.
"Regardless of these efforts, one fatality is too many, and our company will continue to cooperate with law enforcement and the San Mateo County Health Services Agency as they investigate what transpired on Saturday night,'' Sperling's statement read.

Police have not made any arrests dealing with the apparent overdoses. But charges are possible, Roay said, if authorities are able to tie to drugs back to the person who sold them.

 

[tarStar]

Yea, Popsicle was fucking siiiiick. They ran out of water, though, so a gang of people were dehydrating and fallin' out left and right, like flies

 

[RavenousBlonde]

I love how they think 'molly' is somehow different (a variant? haha!) from ecstasy.

I feel horrible for this young man and his family. Hopefully the answers we need to know will come out with toxicology & autopsy reports.

TESTING KITS, PEOPLE!!!

I was actually surprised to hear Cow Palace was still open. Something like this happens there every time there's a big rave, it seems. The police can wish to close EDM events all they want (I doubt they want it closed, look at the pills & drugs they netted!), but that place will be around forever.

 

[RavenousBlonde]

Yea, Popsicle was fucking siiiiick. They ran out of water, though, so a gang of people were dehydrating and fallin' out left and right, like flies

WTF?!? It's not like Cow Palace doesn't KNOW people need water at events like this. Even the sober kids need water in a place crammed with 16K people!

 

[tarStar]

there was a lot of people...and damn near all of 'em were on 1. They were giving away pills. probably all the bunk & 'tainted' ones

 

[Mrfeelgood]

Damn thats crazy.....This kid didn't die from just MDxx...I'll bet money on it....

 

[raver2008]

Not likely. probably cut all to fuck pills

 

[Bearlove]

Such a sad waste of life - I hope that some good comes from this and people understand the risks associated with Ecstasy use are real and the mods talking constantly about test kits are not to fund the site - but to save lives.

It only takes one batch of bad pills.

 

[Bearlove]

I love how they think 'molly' is somehow different (a variant? haha!) from ecstasy.

I read a stupid article a while back about a 'New Designer Drug' users were 'switching' to it as it was like Ecstasy but super potent. It had the street/nick name of 'Molly' - and we wonder where these stupid stories start!

 

[06blkredline]

On the Subie forums people are saying that the pills they took were laced with rat poison.

 

[RavenousBlonde]

On the Subie forums people are saying that the pills they took were laced with rat poison.

I heard this as well, along with another news article I read where they stated there was talk going on during the rave of pills with rat poison. I think someone started this rumor while they were at the rave and it's taken a life of it's own. It almost sounds like something a cop would say to scare people, taken right out of a DARE handbook. 8)

 

[XbraineaterX]

Of the seven other people, five were listed in critical condition Monday with symptoms including internal bleeding and kidney failure.

^Internal bleeding and kidney failure is what rat poison does to the rat. (among other things) Even thought it does sound cliche to say, the symptoms do point to rat poison.

Whats horrible is that I have A LOT of friends that think they only have to test pressed pills. Well maybe after I show them this they will test molly too.

 

[RavenousBlonde]

^Internal bleeding and kidney failure is what rat poison does to the rat. (among other things) Even thought it does sound cliche to say, the symptoms do point to rat poison.

Whats horrible is that I have A LOT of friends that think they only have to test pressed pills. Well maybe after I show them this they will test molly too.

Those symptoms can point to a million other possibilities as well. We need to get some kind of confirmation of what these people took before we all jump on the conclusion train. I'm sure ecstasy pills & molly weren't the only drugs available there.

It's amazing all the drugs that testing kits can test for - they can be used for much more than just ecstasy. People need to keep that in mind, too.

 

[Swizol1]

Rav LMK when you hear more about this......plz ...ty
im not always up to date w the boards but def wanna know what this was?

 

[RavenousBlonde]

Went to search for more news about this and found this:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/07/BARR1DRATQ.DTL

Second death from Cow Palace rave

Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

A second man who attended a Cow Palace rave died after a weeklong effort by doctors to bring him back from the brink, officials said Monday.

Trung Nguyen, 25, of San Jose died Sunday at Washington Hospital in Fremont, eight days after he joined 16,000 partyers at the Cow Palace for the "Pop 2010: The Dream" festival.

Nguyen died a week after another rave-goer, Anthony Mata, 23, of Santa Clara, was pronounced dead of an apparent ecstasy overdose. At least nine other people who attended the rave were taken to Bay Area hospitals.

The Alameda County coroner has not determined the cause of Nguyen's death.

Daly City police homicide investigators would not comment about the deaths, but hospital officials have said the victims were suffering from severe dehydration consistent with taking ecstasy and dancing in a hot, enclosed environment without drinking water. The combination can cause kidney failure.

The deaths prompted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to order a review of event guidelines at state-owned facilities. A San Mateo County supervisor and a police official have called for a ban on raves at the Cow Palace, which is owned by the state Department of Food and Agriculture.

 

[RavenousBlonde]

And also found this story about the overdoses at the "Together As One" NYE rave....

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lan...-years-eve-dead-hospitalized-los-angeles.html

A 24-year-old man died at home and 18 others were transported to emergency rooms after taking Ecstasy at an all-night New Year's Eve rave held at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, according to a report released Thursday.

The report, by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, comes in the same week that officials in the San Francisco area said a second man had died after taking Ecstasy at a Cow Palace rave held over Memorial Day weekend.

At the Cow Palace rave -- which, like the New Year's Eve rave in L.A., was held at a publicly owned venue -- authorities arrested more than 70 people and seized over 800 Ecstasy tablets. At least nine other partygoers went to hospitals with Ecstasy overdoses.

A 23-year-old man died the day after the rave, and a second man, 25, died on Sunday.

The report of the New Year's Eve overdoses, published Thursday in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, detailed a massive party where authorities appeared to anticipate drug use.

The rave attracted 45,000 attendees, according to the CDC. Los Angeles police were on site with undercover narcotics officers, and 14 ambulances were stationed at the facility. Emergency rooms were alerted to expect patients from the rave.

The 18 people who were sent to the hospital were between the ages of 16 and 34. In addition to using Ecstasy, 10 had drunk alcohol, and five had also used other drugs.

The 24-year-old man died at home of multiple drug intoxication, the CDC said. The man had no chronic illnesses. The man’s friends informed authorities that he had “used Ecstasy and cocaine at the rave and injected heroin at home afterward.”

One emergency-room patient suffered organ failure, requiring a stay in the intensive-care unit after suffering a seizure and liver and kidney failure. He needed dialysis to detoxify his blood, according to the report, and remained hospitalized for 28 days. The report said that, after his discharge, the man continued to need dialysis.

Because those sickened had ingested a variety of Ecstasy tablets, health officials concluded that overdose was the cause of their conditions rather than contamination of the drug.

The symptoms of the patients were consistent with Ecstasy use, including agitation, high blood pressure and abnormally rapid heart rate, the CDC report said.

Ecstasy use in Los Angeles County was on the upswing between 2005 and 2009. According to the CDC, one drug-reporting system said that of L.A. County residents entering a drug-treatment program, the number who listed Ecstasy as their drug of choice jumped from 0.22 to 1.65 for every 100,000 residents, a 650% increase.

The CDC report said a recent national survey of teenagers showed a rise in Ecstasy use in 2009 compared with 2008 and a decrease in the perception of risk from the drug.

In line with the increase of the use of Ecstasy in Los Angeles County, the CDC report called the use of the drug a “possible ongoing and underreported public health problem.”

The CDC report identifies the rave as occurring at “a rented public facility jointly owned by the city of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County and the state of California.” The state owns the land on which the Coliseum and Sports Arena sit and rents the venues to the Los Angeles Coliseum Commission, made up of officials from the state and the city and county of Los Angeles.

The New Year’s rave held at the Los Angeles Sports Arena is called “Together as One,” and is organized by Go Ventures, based in West Hills in the San Fernando Valley.

Go Ventures did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Although underground raves -- all-night dance parties featuring electronic music -- have been going since the 1980s, in recent years, they have been held as organized commercial events at established venues, “often with high ticket prices and elaborate laser events,” the CDC report says, noting that the New Year’s Eve rave in Los Angeles County has been held annually since 1998.

The Ecstasy cases in Los Angeles have numerous similarities to overdoses after the Cow Palace rave in Daly City on May 29.

Drug dealing was prominent at the Cow Palace; a narcotics task force led by the San Mateo County sheriff’s department arrested 76 adults and three juveniles on suspicion of selling illegal drugs. All but three of the 79 arrested were from outside San Mateo County. Some came from as far away as Seattle and Los Angeles.

The deaths have prompted some local officials there to question why publicly owned facilities are allowing raves, which have a history of illicit drug use by attendees and which require substantial police resources to arrest drug dealers.

“Every weekend, there’s an underground rave somewhere. But the issue is that this is a state-owned venue. So the taxpayers, they’re paying for law enforcement to deal with this issue at a state-run venue,” said Marc Alcantara, commander of the narcotics task force at the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Department.

San Mateo County Supervisor Adrienne Tissier noted that there were also two deaths at the Cow Palace after a rave on New Year’s Eve in 2002.

“From my perspective, it’s a magnet for drug dealers. You’re putting our youth in harm’s way,” Tissier said. The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to ask the state Legislature to ban raves at the Cow Palace, which is owned by the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Division of Fairs and Expositions.

In Los Angeles, Dr. Brian Johnston, the medical director at the emergency room at White Memorial Medical Center just east of downtown, said he had for years noticed an increase in drug overdose cases during and after raves on Halloween and New Year’s Eve.

The demand on the emergency-room system is so great that White Memorial is asked by county dispatchers to handle the overflow of drug overdoses coming out of the Los Angeles Coliseum area, Johnston said. White Memorial's emergency room is not usually responsible for the Coliseum neighborhood.

[For the record, added at 4:42 p.m.: The headline on an earlier version of this post did not say that the man who died had taken multiple drugs. A 2:35 p.m. "for the record" incorrectly said the man died at the rave. The post correctly reported his death at home.]

-- Rong-Gong Lin II

 

[Bearlove]

Daly City police homicide investigators would not comment about the deaths, but hospital officials have said the victims were suffering from severe dehydration consistent with taking ecstasy and dancing in a hot, enclosed environment without drinking water. The combination can cause kidney failure.

Maybe a simple matter of free / cheap and easy to obtain water would have saved a life?

 

[naughtie]

This makes me very sad. Peoples lives have been changed forever due to these 2 deaths. These 2 men will not get to live out their lives. My heart goes out to the families. Know your sources and test your pills and molly. No drug is worth risking your life.

 

[LSDMDMA&AMP]

anyone else think they just took a high dose of MDxx and didnt drink any water?

 

[severely etarded]

anyone else think they just took a high dose of MDxx and didnt drink any water?

^^ Who knows man my cousin took 13 at a tiesto concert and they ran out of water... and he took a lotta dirty shit mixed in too, so who knows... I was at that tiesto concert also and they ran out of water, it was hot and everyone was dancing, they ran out of water and nobody died that I'm aware of. nobody died though...

There's really a lot more here to be learned here. There's really no telling what caused it. It's too early to make any assumptions IMO. Just my strictly objective .02