EDC death spurs questions
Wife of 34-year-old searches for explanation of what happened
A California man’s death Saturday morning at the Electric Daisy Carnival has loved ones questioning the event’s safety.
Michael Morse, 34, died after the electronic music festival’s first show, which began Friday night and continued through the wee hours Saturday.
He was pronounced dead at
7:41 a.m. Saturday at the event at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Clark County Coroner John Fudenberg said. An official cause and manner of death had not been determined Monday.
Jennifer Marshall, Morse’s wife, said the coroner’s office told her that Morse had a body temperature of 109 degrees at the time of his death.
“He was complaining about how hot it was,” she said of text messages her husband sent her before he died. Friday’s high temperature was 106 degrees, according to
EDC DEATH
Accuweather.com
Now she is angry about reports she has seen stating that the electronic music festival had no major issues this year, and she wonders whether event organizers could have done more to keep her husband safe.
“They keep saying there were no major issues, but a man dying is a major issue,” she told the Las Vegas Review-journal by phone.
Since her husband’s death, Marshall’s family has scoured the Internet for clues that may explain how the EDC veteran succumbed to the weekend’s extreme heat. This was Morse’s third time attending the festival in Las Vegas, and the insurance broker and small-business owner once ran an event safety consulting company.
Marshall said she saw multiple comments online that described concertgoers’ difficulties finding water stations and long waits in line to rehydrate the first night of the festival.
Insomniac Events, the company behind the Electric Daisy Carnival, did not respond to requests for comment Monday. Neither the event company nor county officials mentioned Morse’s death over the weekend.
“People need to be aware so they can be safer,” Marshall said. “One death is one too many.”
More medical emergencies
The number of medical emergencies at the EDC increased this year. Totals released by the Metropolitan Police Department as the festival concluded Monday showed that emergency personnel responded to 1,090 medical calls through 6 a.m. Monday, compared with 617 last year, a 77 percent increase.
Of this year’s calls, 15 people were taken to a hospital. One of those transported was an EDC employee with a medical condition, police said.
According to Insomniac, 135,000 people attended Saturday and Sunday, 1,000 fewer than on Friday. Organizers also reported 282 ejections this year, compared with 111 in 2016.
The circumstances of Morse’s death recall an Edc-related fatality from 2016. California resident Kenani Kaimuloa, 20, died in a Las Vegas hospital a few days after she collapsed and began convulsing while waiting for a shuttle bus with her friends about 6 a.m. on the festival’s last day. The coroner ruled that the club drug MDMA, also known as ecstasy, and cocaine intoxication combined with heat stress caused
Kaimuloa’s death.
Drugs combined with the summer heat have proved deadly in recent years.
Nicholas Tom, 24, died from an ecstasy overdose at EDC in 2015.
In 2014, at least two people died as EDC’S second night ended. A third person was hospitalized after arriving in the valley and died several days later.
In 2012, a 22-year-old pre-med student at the University of Arizona, Emily Mccaughan, experienced paranoid delusions after taking ecstasy at EDC and died after falling from her Strip hotel room’s window. That same year, Florida resident Olivier Hennessy, 31, died after being hit by a truck as he left the festival.
Inspired by the music
Marshall said she does not believe her husband was using club drugs at the festival. He came with three friends and had planned on acting as a “babysitter” for them. He was seen drinking a few beers and hard lemonades, but that was it, she said.
Morse and Marshall, married for seven years and sweethearts since they were 18, have a history with the festival and attended when it was held in Los Angeles.
“He absolutely loved the music, was inspired by the music,” she said. “Mike was the life of the party. He was always up for a new adventure.”
Morse was a devoted uncle, brother and son, she said. He was active in his community and loved to participate in charities such as the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association.
“He was always trying to find a way to give back,” his wife said. “People met him and thought he was the nicest guy in the world.”
Morse’s death is the only one related to the EDC reported so far for 2017, according to the coroner’s office.
Contact Wesley Juhl at wjuhl@ reviewjournal.com and 702-3830391. Contact Rachel Hershkovitz at rhershkovitz@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @Wesjuhl and @rzhershkovitz on Twitter.