Music festival drug deaths: What pills do to teenage bodies

Pill-popping party ravers are cooking their bodies like eggs and risk a toxic shutdown of their internal organs, a leading NSW toxicologist warned in the wake of the latest dance tragedy.

• ‘Beautiful soul’: Popular teen dies at FOMO festival

Pill-popping party ravers are cooking their bodies like eggs and risk a toxic shutdown of their internal organs, a leading NSW toxicologist warned in the wake of the latest dance tragedy.

The state’s chief toxicologist has revealed that festival revellers are cooking themselves to death when they overdose on ecstasy as internal temperatures rocket above 40C in a matter of minutes.

NSW Poisons Information Centre toxicologist Professor Andrew Dawson said understanding what was actually killing festival goers would help friends spot the warning signs.

Festival goers at the Fomo Music Festival at Parramatta Park. Picture: David Swift.

Medics attend to a reveller at FOMO music festival. Picture: David Swift

Police talk to a festival goer at FOMO. Picture: David Swift.

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“All of these drugs fundamentally alter the way the body normally regulates its temperature to start with,” he said.

“So you can get high temperatures just from the drug. Then, if you combine that with the high ambient temperature, that’s a problem. If you increase physical activity, that’s a problem. And if you get dehydrated and unable to sweat and cool yourself - also a problem. So, this is why a concert is such a high risk situation for taking these drugs and particularly when people push the dose up into taking more than one tablet.”

A drug user who has taken multiple pills is then less likely to notice their body is heating up as they dance to festival music in the sun.

“Normally, what will happen to people is that they will often get increasingly agitated, they can then become confused and that’s often a sign they already have a temperature,” he said.

The death of 19-year-old Alex Ross-King after FOMO has shattered her family and shocked her community.

The crowd at FOMO music festival at Parramatta Park on the weekend. Picture: David Swift

“They may not always be aware that they’re actually hot. Once your temperature starts going above about 41 degrees, you’re at a temperature where you start cooking an egg. So, the proteins in the body start poaching and you get multiple organs shut down. And that’s actually what causes the death.

“Patients can very rapidly deteriorate. They can get a temperature of 39 or 40 degrees and rapidly within 10 - 15 minutes to 40 to 43 degrees. And that’s life threatening. So it can be back that fast. So it’s very important to understand that individuals may not be aware that they’re actually unwell. It’s really important that bystanders and friends are looking out to make certain that people are all okay because the individual may not realise you’re unwell.”

Once a body has reached dangerous temperatures internal organs begin to break down and the risk of medical episodes are drastically increased.

Professor Dawson said in the case of bubbly 19-year-old Alex Ross-King, it can be too late once a person presents to the medical team.

“(When) temperature goes above 40 degrees, you can deteriorate to the extent of having a cardiac arrest well within a half an hour,” he said.

Festival goers at the Fomo Music Festival at Parramatta Park today with a heavy police presence searching for drugs. A 19 year old girl has died in Westmead hospital after attending the concert. Picture: David Swift.

“And so one of the concerns with all of these festivals is that people may not necessarily present early enough. They may present to the tents already with a significant temperature though they may be well down the path of major toxicity and organ damage.”

The toxicologist also cast doubt over whether pill-testing could help in these situations saying that there were unanswered questions about whether it could make things worse.

“I think the assessment is for any intervention, not just pill testing, is that role likely to be useful?” he said. Is it going to give a false sense of security? Will it engage people? Will it not engage? Whenever we do an intervention, we have the potential to make things worse or better.”

In the last decade, Professor Dawson has dealt with stimulant overdoses nearly every day and he believes that the strength of pills have not changed dramatically.

Rather, he suggested that behaviours had changed to the degree that users were far more likely to take larger doses.

Police at the FOMO music festival remove a man from the area. Picture: David Swift.

“These recreational drugs have been in common use and presentations every night to virtually every emergency department,” he said.

“So I don’t think that there has been much change in overall use. I think what actually happens with festivals. We know that somewhere between 50 and 75 percent of festival goers will use recreational drugs so we have large numbers of people using drugs and so you are going to see toxicity.

“The other thing that we’re getting from these few confrontations is that people are taking more than one tablet and it may very well be that the behaviour about why people are seeing drugs in the way they’re using has changed.

Heartbreak of lives lost too young.

“So that’s an area that we have to explore because in order to address this problem which is pretty complex you certainly need to engage users and they need to be educated in understanding of risks and how to mitigate those risks.

“We need to be careful in our in our response to make sure we have a good medical response and we need to make sure that events are organised in such a way that it can allow a reduction in risk of people.”