A young woman from Wales collapsed and later died after taking just half an ecstasy tablet at the Creamfields music festival near Liverpool, an inquest heard. Lucy George of Neath, died of multiple organ failure in hospital four days after collapsing.
Lucy's mum said she was a "beautiful girl" with her "whole life ahead of her". The 25-year-old was just three weeks away from starting her "dream job" as a flight attendant with Virgin Atlantic.
The Liverpool Echo reported that her heartbroken mum Helen George said: "As a family now we are absolutely devastated because she's not here. 25 is no age to lose her life. If she has taken what she has taken, it was done in the moment. Lucy was not a drug addict. She was a beautiful girl, she was fun-loving, very hard working, and she had her whole life ahead of her."
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"From this, these youngsters need to realise that drugs are serious. It's not something that you should just take. Lucy has paid the ultimate price by losing her life."
Toxicology reports found a mixture of drugs in Lucy's system, including fatal levels of MDMA (ecstasy).
An inquest held in Warrington on Wednesday heard she began acting strangely at the Cheshire festival around 8.20pm on Friday, April 26. Her friends tried desperately for around a hour to get help as she fell unconscious - but medics were "too busy" to assist them.
Friends said that after arriving on Thursday, she took half an MDMA pill and spent the night drinking vodka and "doing balloons" (inhaling nitrous oxide) with her friends. Daniel Humphries told the inquest: "When we were at Creamfields, people were selling drugs around the tents. They were easy to get hold of."
Her cousin Kasey Counsell had gone with her to the festival a day earlier on the Thursday. She described Lucy as being "really disorientated, really confused" and realised from her behaviour that "something was wrong". Lucy was carried halfway to the medical tent, which was located about 10 minutes away up a steep hill, by her friends, two Creamfields security guards and another man.
The on-site hospital's ambulance control team were finally alerted to Lucy's condition at around 9.35pm. Paramedics attended, and she was stretchered into the medical tent at 9.45pm. Lucy was struggling to breathe, and went into cardiac arrest as doctors prepared a ventilation tube. She was resuscitated, and taken by ambulance to Warrington Hospital's ICU.
Helen said: "Initially the hospital was positive and keeping our spirits up, but as the day went on it wasn't good news, and by the Monday there was nothing more they could do."
Lucy died at around 3am on Tuesday, August 30, surrounded by her family. Her inquest was told she was not a drug addict, but had occasionally taken drugs, including at last year's Creamfields Festival, and had talked about buying them ahead of the event.
Handing down a conclusion of death by misadventure, coroner Jacqueline Devonish said: "(Lucy) wasn't a drug addict. She only took drugs because she happened to be at the festival and that's what young people do when they go to festivals.
"In this case Lucy had taken drugs, she did that to herself, no one forced her to do it. It wasn't with the intention of harming herself. She didn't expect this outcome.
"She was 25, she was no age, and it's really sad to think that someone as bright and bubbly and lively and energetic and hard-working as Lucy has lost her life."
She added that, even if Lucy had received medical attention sooner, it was unlikely that her life could have been saved due to the high levels of MDMA in her system.
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