BANGOR, Maine –
A rock concert held last week in Maine now holds the Guinness World Record for the most overdoses on drugs at any public event.
According to the Guinness Records department, a reported 387 people overdosed, and 196 of those lead to death, at a recent concert in the small Northern city. The event, which featured a performance by a “world famous rock act,” according to police, had an estimated 15,000 people attending.
“In comparison to the number of attendees, th3 fact that there were only 387 overdoses seems comparatively small, I know,” said event organizer John Maynard. “But we really struggled to reach that number. It’s against the rules for the show to hand out or sell heavy narcotics just to hit the world record, and we definitely didn’t want to spoil our chances.”
For those who attended the concert, they said it was “just another night at a rock show,” and that most people didn’t even notice the violent convulsions, vomiting, or people passing out.
“The show was too good for me to even care, dude,” said Kyle Chaplin, 26. “I heard that a shit ton of people OD’d, and that a bunch died, too. That sucks for them, seriously. But like, it’s a rock show man. Shit’s bound to happen. Cool thing was that as soon as people started passing out and shit, it made it really easy to get up front into the good seats.”
Police say that the next event they will “loosen security” in hopes that they can move the record even higher. The next biggest number of overdoses was at Lollapalooza 1997, when 264 people OD’d. In that case, only 75 ended up dead.
