Reveller dies after running into f lames at Burning Man festival
TENS of thousands of festival-goers watched in horror as a man ran headlong into a burning 50ft effigy after dodging security guards who tried to tackle him.
The unnamed reveller at the Burning Man festival inexplicably made a beeline for the inferno, and was then silhouetted as he appeared to dance in the blaze.
But he was quickly overcome and collapsed in the leaping flames.
Firemen dragged him out, and he was treated by paramedics before being flown by helicopter to hospital where he later died.
Some 70,000 people from all over the world had gathered for the annual arts and music event in the Black Rock Desert in the US state of Nevada.
The highlight of the annual festival is the burning of a huge wooden sculpture of a man. Festival-goers attach notes and other personal items to the enormous effigy in the run-up to its destruction.
In a statement, organisers of the counterculture festival said that at around 10.30pm on Saturday ‘a male participant at the Burning Man event in northern Nevada broke through a safety perimeter and into into a fire’.
They added: ‘Black Rock City fire personnel rescued him. The individual was treated on scene, transported to the on-site medical facility and airlifted to a burn centre.’ Tickets for the nine- day festival cost between £330 and £930.
It is so- called self- sustaining festival, so attendees bring all their own food and water, and dismantle the massive site before they go, leaving the desert pristine.