People hospitalised ‘with gas poisoning’ after rave
AMAN who broke lockdown rules to attend an illegal rave has claimed people were hospitalised afterwards with carbon monoxide poisoning.
The 23-year-old – who wanted to remain anonymous – said that the event was the first time he had been out in around 10 months.
He and his friends went to the party, held in a tunnel near to the former Ravenscraig Steelworks in the North Lanarkshire town, at around 8pm on Sunday and stayed for around five hours.
The Motherwell man said: “It was brilliant, wild. It was good to see people having fun again after lockdown.”
But due to there being no ventilation, the man said, a generator used to power the sound system pumped toxic gas into the unmasked faces of revellers, who woke up the next morning extremely sick.
“We were coughing up black stuff afterwards and some people took themselves to hospital afterwards with carbon monoxide poisoning,” he added.
“My friend was spewing up black stuff the next day. There was no ventilation and they had a generator running with around 100 people there.
“There was no lighting either, so there were just lots of people with their phone torches on, so obviously nobody could see the stuff that was flying around. People took themselves to hospital, because they were feeling confused and a bit dazed. Around four or five people that I know went.”
He was not worried about catching Covid at the illegal event and was excited to go out again after more than a year of lockdown.
“It’s been that long since everyone’s been to a rave or whatever,” he said.
“I don’t think people were caring. We were just thinking ‘it’s a party’ and everyone was desperate to get out and past caring to be honest.”
As a carer for his sister, the man is vaccinated, so would be protected against the virus if he caught it, though he still risks passing on the virus to others.
He admitted: “It’s selfish, at the end of the day. But it was a one-off, it wasn’t like we had five of these lined up and it was the first I’d been to. I don’t think that anyone is regretting going.”
Despite recent relaxations in lockdown rules, gatherings like this one are still illegal and organisers and attendees could be fined.
Police said they were aware of videos of the event circulating on social media but were not called to the event itself. NHS Lanarkshire was unable to comment on whether people had been hospitalised.