Young diabetic Chinese student Tiemuzhen Chalaer took ‘cocktail of drugs’ before vanishing
Friends of a young diabetic who went missing at a remote bush doof northwest of Sydney after taking a cocktail of drugs didn’t raise the alarm with authorities because they didn’t want to shut down the party, an inquest has heard.
NSW
Don't miss out on the headlines from NSW. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Friends of a young diabetic who went missing at a remote bush doof northwest of Sydney after taking a cocktail of drugs didn’t raise the alarm with authorities because they didn’t want to shut down the party, an inquest has heard.
Chinese student Tiemuzhen Chalaer partied all night at the unregistered GEOHectic music festival in the Hawkesbury’s Lower Portland on August 6, 2016, before vanishing without a trace.
Fellow revellers saw the 24-year-old Darlinghurst man consume acid, magic mushrooms, MDMA, cannabis and alcohol, police advocate assisting the coroner Durand Welsh said on Monday.
At about 6.30am the next morning Mr Chalaer left a car full of his mates and his insulin behind to head out into the bush to pee, the NSW Coroners Court heard.
But when he failed to return Mr Chalaer’s friends didn’t alert event organisers or police for fear of being caught with drugs and left the two-day festival several hours later without him, Detective Senior Constable Myles Oxford told the inquest.
“Unfortunately they were more worried about their own self interest,” he said.
“They were more concerned about the party getting closed down.”
Relatives of Mr Chalaer, known as Tim, flew to Australia from China to attend the three-day hearing at Lidcombe Court.
The probe seeks to examine whether Mr Chalaer died from a diabetes-related illness, exposure, a fall, foul play or suicide.
The court heard that in 2008 Mr Chalaer injected a large dose of insulin during a self harm attempt in China, but his friends hadn’t noticed any suicidal behaviour while he was at the 300-person doof.
Peers from Mr Chalaer’s Blue Mountains hotel management school scoured the campsite themselves before dropping another woman home, going to McDonalds and arriving at Mr Chalaer’s home later on August 7.
His flatmate immediately called the cops at 8pm — more than 12 hours after Mr Chalaer first disappeared.
Det Oxford reckons that delay was a “massive factor” impacting the diabetic’s very short survival time window.
The next morning police began a month-long search through dense scrub land using helicopters, dogs, drones and hundreds of volunteers, but only found a pair of shoes and socks placed 200 metres from the campsite, the court heard.
“If we had got down there earlier, if we had called out he might have been able to respond,” Det Oxford said.
The last person to see Mr Chalaer alive told the inquest he thought his good friend may have gotten another ride home and didn’t want to call the cops unnecessarily because his China-based parents didn’t know he took drugs.
“I was trying to avoid the drug blame game,” the young man, who has been given the pseudonym of Benjamin Casey, said.
Mr Casey said Mr Chalaer was acting paranoid and “peculiar” as they smoked marijuana together in the car between 3am and 6.30am, saying he couldn’t urinate because the whole party was against him and watching.
But doctors believe Mr Chalaer was suffering from acute urinary retention due to excess blood glucose and may have died of a ruptured bladder, the court heard.
The reveller said he didn’t notice Mr Chalaer’s diabetes kit was inside their car until that afternoon.
“That’s when I got goosebumps,” he said.
“I wish I wasn’t so completely drug spent, my mind was completely lost.” Mr Casey said the “bonkers” Facebook-organised doof was dangerous because attendees were free to take as many drugs as they wanted without fear of police.
“There needs to be a level of monitoring. It needs to be there so that people like me don’t go this far,” he said.
“The only reason why I took that many drugs is because I knew that I could and there was nobody there to stop me.”
Originally published as Young diabetic Chinese student Tiemuzhen Chalaer took ‘cocktail of drugs’ before vanishing
Minns govt: We will clean up Kean’s heat pump ‘mess’
NSW will ban door-knocking salesman and introduce five-year warranties on units while also launching a compliance blitz on the building industry, following The Telegraph’s major investigation into dodgy hot water pumps.
Read more
Harbour tolls up to save Western Sydney motorists
The state government will hike the fees levied on drivers to cross Sydney Harbour from July 1. The increase will be used to help to pay for the $60 toll cap. Read how much you’ll pay.
Read more