Woman collapses after puffing on vape offered by stranger at Isle of Wight Festival
A woman collapsed after puffing on a vape offered by a stranger at the Isle of Wight festival.
26-year-old festival-goer Chloe Hammerton immediately broke out into a load of fits 'within a minute' of taking a puff from a stranger's vape.
Chloe was attending the festival on Saturday (17 June) with her brother William and her girlfriend Natasha Ward.
Natasha has since taken to Facebook to share the story she has dubbed the 'worst 24 hours of my life'.
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She began: "Saturday into Sunday was truly one of the worst 24 hours of my life due to someone spiking/drugging, and nearly killing, my girlfriend at the Isle of Wight festival on Saturday afternoon/evening."
She explained that Chloe and her brother, from Southampton, were approached by a man at the festival in one of the food queues who encouraged her to try out his vape - which is when everything took a turn for worse.
"Chloe doesn’t vape or smoke, and has never done drugs in her life, but was duped into taking a puff in this situation," Natasha revealed.
In just a minute, Chloe was 'in and out of consciousness' and totally 'unable to speak'.
Natasha recalled she wasn't able to 'move any part of her body' and began 'fitting with her pupils constricting to pinpoints and then dilating to 7’s'.
Through the post, Natasha is hoping to raise awareness of spiking through vapes - something she admits 'none of us had ever heard of'.
She continued: "I also want to highlight the death sentence the festival organisers, security, 'welfare team' and medic almost gave Chloe from the total incompetence and lack of urgency which led to us waiting over an hour for ANY 'medical response' and over TWO HOURS for any ADEQUATE medical response."
An Isle of White spokesperson has since told LADbible what happened to Chloe was an 'isolated incident' and claimed a medical professional was on site in five minutes.
Natasha went on to say she had 'never experience anything like it' before criticising the festival's procedure with how they handled the situation.
She wrote: "You would think that an event of this scale and prominence would have the correct procedures and resources to be able to react promptly in these situations to keep people safe.
"If it doesn’t, which it CLEARLY doesn’t, then what on earth are they doing holding the event in the first place. This should be the number one priority above everything else. It is appalling."
Chloe's case was was 'put through' as a crash call - the highest priority you can get - yet still received subpar treatment as there would there was 'no equipment, medication or staff qualified enough to help' the pair.
Natasha added: "The response was completely abhorrent. Negligent. Inhumane. Disgraceful."
Luckily, Chloe - who is an Emergency Care Assistant - finally received help.
"If it wasn’t for Rachel - an incredible nurse in the crowd - and Sophie, our amazing student nurse sister-in-law, helping Chloe, we would be in a totally different situation," Natasha disclosed.
She has since said how 'grateful' she is for the 'amazing support' they did get, before adding: "I could not live without her, and dread to think what actually could’ve happened, or what one more inhalation would’ve done."
Natasha also claimed Chloe was 'left to die' by the festival and hit out at police on the scene who 'didn’t conduct proper drugs testing'.
An Isle of Wight spokesperson told LADbible: "We operate a zero tolerance policy for anyone attempting to bring drugs to the festival and have robust systems in place to deal with anyone who attempts to do so.
"This was an isolated incident dealt with quickly and professionally by all teams on site and no further reports of this nature have been recorded.
"Our event medical team employs a wide range of appropriately qualified healthcare professionals. These fully trained individuals work 24 hours a day across our medical facilities on site.
"Regarding the incident reported on social media, we are confident the team dealt with it in a timely manner, with an appropriate medical practitioner on site within 5 minutes and the patient's condition assessed as non life-threatening and subsequently transported to the on site hospital.
"The safety and wellbeing of attendees is our utmost priority and alongside our partners in the police, security and medical teams, we work incredibly hard over the festival weekend to ensure everyone is looked after."
Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary have also released a statement on the matter, saying: "We are investigating following a report of a woman becoming unwell after using a vape at the Isle of Wight Festival.
"It has been reported that on the evening of Saturday, 17 June a 26-year-old woman was offered a vape by a man while at the festival. After using a small amount of the vape she became unwell and required medical assistance.
"The matter is under investigation. Officers are in contact with the woman and will be carrying out drugs testing to help further the investigation."
Natasha has since told LADbible: "We aren’t able to add further comments at this time because of the investigation."
LADbible has reached out to both Chloe and Natasha, the Isle of Wight festival and Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary for comment.
Rhiannon Ingle