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Parents Sue After Daughter Dies at LA Rave

Katie Dix went without medical treatment for a half-hour, the suit alleges
By Elizabeth Armstrong Moore,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 29, 2016 6:44 AM CDT
Parents Sue After Daughter Dies at LA Rave
Katie Dix was 19 when she died last August due to complications from a drug overdose at a rave in Los Angeles.   (California Department of Motor Vehicles)

Katie Dix, the Cal State Channel Islands college student who died of an overdose at a rave at the Los Angeles County fairgrounds last August, allegedly went without medical attention for half an hour after collapsing. She'd suffered a cardiac arrest by the time she arrived at the Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center. Last Friday her parents filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Fair Assn., the city of Pomona, the county, and event host Live Nation for negligence, reports the Los Angeles Times. The suit alleges that the defendants "breached their duties to protect" those attending the Hard Summer Music Festival from people distributing illicit drugs and that the rave was overcrowded and understaffed.

Dix's parents contend their "lively and vivacious" rising sophomore would have been saved "had medical treatment ... been timely and proper." Dix apparently thought she'd taken "pure Molly," or ecstasy, but had consumed "bath salts," NBC Los Angeles reports by way of the suit. The suit says there were four medical stations to service the festival's 65,000 attendees, and alleges that those who responded to Dix didn't have proper training. She was one of two young women to die from an overdose at the rave on Aug. 1, with 49 people total taken by ambulance to seven different emergency rooms over the fest's two days. Long before the Dix lawsuit was filed, the Times reports LA County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich called the rave operators "irresponsible" and said that "no one should have to lose their life by attending a music event at one of our facilities." (More raves stories.)

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