Lost and intoxicated, a Sydney teenager sent increasingly incoherent texts to friends as she wandered a music festival ground before collapsing and dying, her inquest has been told.
Alex Ross-King, 19, died after consuming three MDMA caps and multiple alcohol drinks, and collapsing at FOMO festival at Parramatta in January.
The inquest into her death on Wednesday was told she lost contact with her friends about 3pm and began trying to reach them by phone.
About 3.30pm, she texted to a friend “F***s sake, I just want to find yours” before addressing a group chat: “Bro can someone just me from under the tree.”
“Please someone,” another message read.
Ms Ross-King’s friend, who cannot be identified, told NSW Coroners Court on Wednesday she wasn’t getting much phone service but was eventually able to message back they were at the “upstairs toilet”.
“We will be here, there’s dogs here,” the friend warned.
“If you have something, give it to someone else.” Alex sent “I don’t hwc wnythiy hqhwh” and “Where were you”.
The friend told the inquest Ms Ross-King had earlier taken three MDMA caps within a few hours, including two at the festival gates when she became nervous she’d be caught by sniffer dogs.
When friends eventually found her, they weren’t concerned she was seriously unwell despite her rapid breathing and repeated complaints about being hot and being “really f***ed up”.
“My legs aren’t working,” Ms Ross-King told her friend.
She eventually received medical treatment at the insistence of a health worker patrolling the grounds, the court heard.
The young woman resisted medical staff as they applied ice to her before she was rushed to nearby Westmead Hospital, where she soon went into cardiac arrest and died.
Ms Ross-King’s friend told the inquest the teenager had used MDMA regularly for months in early 2018 but stopped about August and had never consumed three caps in one day.
The friend later burst into tears while telling the court the effect of losing a “sister” and a friend who “always put others first”.
“She took a massive part of me when she left,” the young woman said.
“I just hope something comes from this and we make a change for her.”
Ms Ross-King’s parents echoed those remarks outside, urging Premier Gladys Berejiklian to act.
The inquest is examining six recent MDMA-related deaths at NSW music festivals between December 2017 and January 2019.
Ms Ross-King, Nathan Tran, Joshua Tam, Joseph Pham, Callum Brosnan and Diana Nguyen were all aged between 18 and 23.
“What else can I say? Go home, hug your children,” Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame said as she adjourned the inquest until Thursday.
The messages show Ms Nguyen’s partner urged her not to take “too much” of the drug in the lead-up to the Defqon.1 festival in western Sydney on September 15 last year.
“Stay safe please n dont take too much please,” he wrote in the messages sent in the days and hours before the 30,000 capacity “hardstyle” dance event on September 15 last year.
“I Think im going to take 1 (MDMA cap) hahah,” Ms Nguyen wrote to her partner, who she met in school when she was 14. “It’s been so long I’m so scared.”
“Hahahah smart choice i hope u dont end up full munted and someone takes a pic of video of u,” her partner wrote.
“Hahahah noooooo probs take it at night maybe,” she responded.
“Hahah. Okay babe jst stay safe n dont lose anything and also stay next too ur friends,” her fiance wrote in the final message tendered as evidence in the inquest.
The court heard Ms Nguyen arranged to buy three caps from someone she knew and bought an addition three from men they didn’t know at the event.
She and two friends each took one each and danced for an hour, but soon began to sweat heavily on the scorching September day so they made a beeline to the VIP tent to hydrate.
An hour later she told mates she “felt good”, and the friends agreed to each take one more cap.
Just 30 minutes after that the court heard Ms Nguyen was drinking water on the dance floor but appeared “shaky on her feet” — her friends said the was “hot to the touch and was incoherent and sweating”. She was brought into the festival’s medical tent after she’d collapsed at around 7.45pm.
The court heard she was unconscious, twitching and spasming — which made it difficult for the medical team to open her mouth and give her oxygen.
Ice packs were used to cool her down, as her internal body temperature had soared to 39C — two degrees above normal.
Paramedics arrived at 9.05pm and took her to Nepean Hospital, but she suffered a cardiac arrest on the journey and died just over an hour later.
Earlier on Wednesday the inquest was presented research the suggested four in five surveyed Australian festivalgoers had used MDMA at one stage in the past year.
Criminologist Caitlin Hughes said her study analysed responses from one of the largest surveys of Australian festival users ever.
The research published on Wednesday suggests, of 5155 Australians who attended a music festival in the past year, 99.7 per cent had used alcohol and 79.5 per cent had used MDMA in the past year.
Three in four had used cannabis in the past year while cocaine use (69.1 per cent) was also popular.
But while almost half of all alcohol users consumed at least once a week, cannabis users consumed on average once every 12 days and MDMA users typically used less than once a month.
Two-thirds of alcohol users consumed at least five standard drinks in a single setting, which is considered “binge” drinking.
Dr Hughes said given the survey was self-selective, it may not be indicative of all festivalgoers but could show how those young people use alcohol and other illicit drugs.
“When you look at illicit drug (use) patterns specifically, it’s consistent with non-problematic ways,” Dr Hughes told the inquest.
“It’s not to say people who go to festivals aren’t using in problematic ways (but) the majority will be using fairly infrequently, fairly modestly and only going to festivals once or twice (a year).
“They’re educated, have jobs and are productive, full members of society.”
Research also out on Wednesday, led by Monica Barratt using results from the same survey, suggested one in 23 people sought emergency treatment after consuming alcohol, compared to one in 40 for MDMA or one in 100 for cannabis.
“While we’re focusing on MDMA, alcohol is the drug that is associated with most problematic rates of use,” Dr Hughes told the inquest.
“So particularly when combined with Dr Barratt’s research, it shows the importance of considering poly-drug (multi-drug) consumption ... particularly to reduce alcohol consumption at these settings.”
With Ben Graham
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Alex Ross-King: Teen’s text before FOMO death after taking MDMA - NEWS.com.au"
Post a Comment