Northwest News Network, Jessica Robinson
For three days, the annual pilgrimage of 25,000 rollicking concert goers at Sasquatch Music Festival Gorge Amphitheatre is picturesque central Washington along the Columbia River in the largest city in Grant County city.
But not all of them stay there. Some end up in the small hospital in Quincy, Washington, with drug overdoses, alcohol poisoning and dehydration.
"They come in an ambulance. Come by friends. Come for pick- up," says Dr. Fernando Dietsch, director of ER in Quincy Valley Medical Center, the closest hospital to the Gorge Amphitheater. "They are unconscious or barely conscious. They are intoxicated (with) something. His blood pressure is down. You do not know why. "
" Each room will be filled "
Quincy is about 17 km from the Gorge, past vineyards and fields of alfalfa. Its small hospital is across the street from a plant that turns potatoes into fries. On a typical day, maybe 10 people come through the doors.
However, during the 3 day festival Sasquatch? It's more like 60 or 70 per day.
“Each room will be full," says Dietsch. "What we're seeing here is nothing compared to Sasquatch. It's surreal."
And Sasquatch is just the beginning. Dietsch has a list of the entire summer concerts throat. With each new event, which will go online and listen to music so you can predict what kind of audience will be there, and what kind of drugs are used . Coming up in late June Paradiso is an electronic music festival two days. Then there is the basin in August - three days of country music.
To Paradiso, Dietsch says he is expecting a large amount of synthetic narcotics. For basins, he says, "all the alcohol. Alcohol and fights."
Dietsch admits he is forced to stereotype "more than a little."
"We have to have a good understanding of what draws these concerts," he says. “And what the staff that we have here.”
Paying the bill
all concerts begin to take its toll. Most of these 20-somethings in flip flops pay their hospital bills. But some do not. And that, along with the extra that has to be scheduled around the concerts of the throat, the cost of publicly owned hospital $ 400,000 last year.
“This situation cannot continue," says Mehdi Merred hospital administrator. "In our research, there was a similar situation in the United States, where a small, rural hospital has to take care of a great place as the Gorge."
There are other music festivals outside houses in small towns - the Britt Festival in Jacksonville, Oregon, the Festival at Sandpoint in northern Idaho. But those do not attract nearly the size or the type of people that makes the Gorge Amphitheater. Coachella is similar, but is close to several California cities with hospitals. Burning Man Winnemucca contracts with hospitals to provide emergency assistance at the scene.
Merred is now making an unusual request. He is asking for Live Nation, the company that produces all concerts of the throat, to pay. Merred says Live Nation met last summer after a 21 -year-old died in Paradiso . But he said that so far have not been able to reach an agreement.
"Seriously, do not believe in good faith at this time," says Merred.
Live Nation declined to comment on the tape, but in a written statement, said "We have met with the hospital and the Gorge continues to operate in close collaboration with local, state and federal officials. " A spokeswoman also said the concerts are an economic engine in the region. In fact, says the county treasurer last year, income tax generated $ 1.2 million of the Gorge.
An additional charge?
Recently, state Rep. Matt Manweller , a Republican Ellensberg area , intervened to try to find a solution. It is preparing a bill that would allow the county to add a $ 1 fee to concert tickets gorge.
"I'm not sure that Live Nation is responsible for some of the bad decisions that concert goers do," says Manwellwer. “And by charging this fee on the ticket, is the assistant of the real concert bears the cost. And I think that's fairer."
Half the money would go to the district hospital, the other half of the fire district, which has also been struggling to handle the stress of the weekend concert.
Of course, people who end up in the hospital Quincy are only a small part of concert goers over 250,000 in the gorge. Nick Emacio, a musician from Seattle who has gone to Sasquatch on four occasions since 2005, says that most people are there to enjoy the music and camping with friends.
"You'll see people having beers and everyone is having a good time in their small groups and parties and stuff," he says. “But if you go to the parking $ 20 -a - day, its like 'Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.” Something is burning. Everyone is running around, there's someone on a bike or something. It's crazy. "
Emacio not going to Sasquatch this year. At over $ 300 per ticket, which is a bit out of your price range at the time? And maybe next year, that will be $ 301.
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