Police calls at Ever After down; more people hospitalized

KITCHENER — Charges dropped significantly at the Ever After music festival this year.

But paramedics were busy taking partygoers high on drugs to hospital.

Waterloo Regional Police even assigned a police officer to the emergency department at Grand River Hospital to assist security and paramedics with party patrons at the hospital.

Medical calls doubled from last year, police said.

In a police services board report to be presented at a meeting Wednesday, police say there were 136 incidents at the June 8-10 festival at Bingemans.

The majority of the calls were sick persons, trespassing and drugs.

Last year, police responded to 342 calls, most being drug-related and noise complaints.

Police said the number of drug incidents decreased this year because security searched patrons at the gate before they came in.

Paramedics responded to 37 calls and, of those, 32 people were taken to hospital and 22 were in serious or critical condition, said Region of Waterloo Paramedic Services.

In 2017, paramedics took 24 people to hospital for drug and alcohol intoxication.

Police said 18 charges were laid last month, compared to 22 charges in 2017.

The majority of charges were related to trespassing and liquorrelated infractions.

This year about 49,000 people attended the music festival, up from last year when 38,000 attended.