Wave of fear washes over Gold Coast Schoolies after meth injecting rumour
Rumours of an alleged beach-dwelling bogeyman armed with a needle full of meth have washed a wave of fear over partygoers at this year’s Gold Coast Schoolies.
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QUEENSLAND Police have promptly shut down speculation spreading among this year’s Schoolies cohort that graduates are being injected with methamphetamine at beach parties.
A police spokesperson said the Schoolies rumour was “100 per cent untrue” and believe it could have originated on social media.
Police said the speculation may have been sparked by Travis Scott’s Astroworld tragedy in Houston, Texas, in which partygoers involved in an alleged mass drug-spiking spree caused a crowd surge that killed 10 people.
Gold Coast Health Emergency Department specialist Dr Jeffrey Hooper said there were no presentations to the Emergency Treatment Centre in Surfers Paradise to “indicate any truth” to the rumour.
“We’re happy to see anybody who comes in for any kind of medical emergency and we encourage our school leavers, if they do need any assistance, to come and see us,” he said.
Schoolies student Richie George said he caught wind of the rumour through mutual friends and believed the word-of-mouth speculation was “widespread among those who attended the beach parties”.
“We also heard there were kids coming out of the beach parties in wheelchairs after being injected,” he said.
“It’s scary to think this could be happening here at Schoolies. But personally, none of us have directly witnessed anything as we’ve only been to one beach party.”
Another partygoer, Kevin O’Brien, said people were spreading stories about “people being crowd trampled” at the opening-night beach party.
“Me and my friends think all these rumours aren’t true otherwise the parties and Schoolies would have been shut down all together by now,” he said.
Billy Cross of Cross Promotions said it took only “one idiot to ruin the spirit of Schoolies”.
He says he has not heard about the injection rumour and has “no idea” the origins of “such a ridiculous story”.
Queensland Ambulance paramedics assessed a total of 43 patients within the Schoolies Emergency Treatment Centre on the fourth day of celebrations.
Of these, five patients required further assessment at hospital. A further three patients were transported from the event precinct directly to hospital.
Police are still in the midst of a crackdown on “toolies”, with 70 arrests made since the start of the festival on Saturday. To date, 14 school leavers have been arrested for a variety of street offences including public nuisance.
Police arrested four people for street offences” on the fifth day of the festivities.
The arrests on Wednesday included two school leavers and two non-schoolies, or “toolies”.
Paramedics assessed 35 patients in the Emergency Treatment Centre. Of those patients, none required further assessment at hospital.
A further five people were transported from the event precinct directly to hospital.
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