Emergency Care at a Music Festival: A First-Person Report

Lessons Learned

Over the 2-day 2016 EDM festival, 235 patients were treated at the field hospital, and 68 were transported to ORMC—almost 100 fewer hospital transports than during the 2015 EDM festival, which lacked a field hospital. Although two attendees at the 2016 event required intensive care at ORMC, there were no deaths. Overall, the field hospital and cooperative approach provided a safer method for treating patients and without overwhelming hospital or EMS resources. 
Successful utilization of a field hospital at the 2016 EDM festival required the coordinated efforts of multiple organizations, including the EMS system, ORMC, festival organizers, and disaster response groups. The deployment of this strategy required a great deal of planning, coordination, and efforts months before the actual event, and included a sufficient number of trained emergency and medical personnel, support staff for equipment set-up, operation, and takedown, and insurance coverage.

In reviewing the medical care model provided for the 2016 EDM festival, we concluded that a more effective and efficient staffing model would have deployed more nurses and fewer physicians. Utilizing the event as training for residents and medical students resulted in a large number of providers on-site, but inadequate support staff.

When planning for this event, we did not anticipate the extent of the primary care and urgent care concerns encountered during the event, though we did anticipate that the most critical medical concerns were sympathomimetic and hallucinogenic toxidromes requiring restraint, benzodiazepines, and antipsychotics.