AROUND 90,000 people are expected to attend Leeds Festival over the bank holiday weekend, where headlining acts include Travis Scott and Limp Bizkit.
But for Anna Short, the event – which runs from today (Thursday) until Sunday at the city’s Bramhall Park – brings nothing but pain and heartbreak.
Anna Short says her family will never be the same again after Anya’s tragic death at just 17[/caption]
For Anna’s niece Anya Buckley, 17, died on August 26, 2019, after taking a cocktail of drugs at the festival.
“As soon as you get over one milestone, another one comes around,” Anna, 52, told the The Mirror.
“It’s really difficult on family occasions, because there’s somebody missing. Her birthday, Christmas, weddings – any family event is really difficult.
”But the anniversary of her death is the day you never want to remember.”
Like thousands of fellow teenagers, Anya was looking forward to letting her hair down at the festival.
She had just enjoyed a holiday with her friends and gone ‘official’ with her boyfriend Jack.
But Anya took a mixture of ‘party drugs’ – MDMA, ketamine and cocaine – and collapsed.
Medical staff tried to revive Anya but tragically she was declared dead just after 3:30am on August 24, 2019.
The court heard that ecstasy toxicity was likely to have been the central factor in her death, The Sun reported at the time.
Tragically, Anya’s is not the only drug-related death to be associated with UK festivals.
Between 2017 and 2023, 32 drug-related deaths were recorded at festivals in the UK.
18 of these were festival-goers aged under 18.
But according to drugs charity Loop, the number could be even higher, as currently there is no centralised system for recording drug deaths at festivals and events.
Now Anya’s relatives and the families of other teenagers who have tragically lost their lives in similar circumstances are urging event organisers to ‘’put people before profit’’.
As well as drug testing at all festivals, these families want young people to be educated on their potential dangers – and the festival organisers to provide a free water and ensure that swift medical help is available.
Anna, of Oldham, said her late niece Anya came along before she had her own children and that pair were ”very close”.
Now that Lily, Anna’s daughter, is the same age as Anya when she tragically passed away the psychological impact is enormous.
David Celino died at Leeds Festival just three years later[/caption]
His dad Gianpiero Celino told the hearing at Wakefield Coroner’s Court that drug dealers prey on teens[/caption]
Unfortunately, Anya’s death was followed just three years later by that of David Celino, 16, from Worsley, in Greater Manchester.
The teenager died in hospital after taking ecstasy at Leeds Festival in 2022.
His dad Gianpiero Celino told the hearing at Wakefield Coroner’s Court that drug dealers prey on teens “like the child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”.
Gianpiero said: “The ticket that could signal the death of another young person has already been sold.
“It’s out there somewhere. It’s just not been cashed.
“We think there’s a problem with the availability and provision of drugs at the site.
“We believe that, as it’s currently run, the festival can’t be safe for 16 or 17-year-olds who attend unaccompanied.”
The grieving dad told how he drove David to the festival, where the teen planned to celebrate his GCSE results with mates.
Gianpiero and his wife stayed in a hotel near the site in case David did not like camping.
THE TOLL ‘K’ TAKES ON YOUR BODY
KETAMINE can lead to death by putting pressure on the heart and respiratory system.
But its other effects on the body, which are often irreversible, are horrifying, too.
“Ketamine bladder syndrome is one of the worst symptoms,” Dr Catherine Carney, an addiction specialist at Delamere, told Sun Health.
This is where the breakdown of ketamine in the body causes inflammation in the bladder wall.
It leaves people unable to hold urine and passing chunks of their bladder tissue.
Some users face the prospect of having their bladders removed entirely.
Dr Carney explains: “The lining of the bladder can shrink over time and be extremely painful for those experiencing it.
“This can often lead to lower abdominal pain and pain when passing urine, as well as bleeding.
“It’s usually what has forced people to get help because they can’t tolerate it any more.
“We’ve had young men in agony, wetting the bed.
“Their whole life is focused on where there’s a toilet because they can only hold urine for ten minutes.
“For a teenager or someone in their early 20s, that’s absolutely life-changing.
“In some cases, the bladder damage progresses to the kidneys and people get kidney failure, too.
“This is developing in people who have been using for two years, so it is relatively quick.”
Dr Carney adds that the urine samples of new guests checking into the clinic are often just a “pot of blood”.
This is followed by weeks of agony coming off the drug. An irony of ketamine use is people tend to take more and more to numb the pain of the side-effects it causes.
Dr Carney says: “There’s nothing that we can give which is as strong as a medical anaesthetic (the ketamine). We can use codeine-based products or anti-inflammatories.
“Some antidepressants help at night, but the pain is hard to manage in the early days.
“Most people that come to us, the bladder will improve to the point that they don’t need to have it removed.
“But once you’ve got a bladder that has shrunk to the size of 70ml, that’s never getting better.”
They also splashed out hundreds of pounds for David and his friends to say in a “Camping Plus” area with extra security.
Tragic cases like those of Anya and David have led to calls from families for event organisers, police and the government to improve safety at UK festivals.
Following the tragic death of her niece, Anna wants festivalgoers, who are tempted to take ‘party drugs’ to have access to information about the dangers in order to make an informed decision before they do so.
“Not enough is being done at festivals – particularly Leeds Festival – as David Celino lost his life a few years after Anya,” Anna told the publication.
“It feels like the organisers just accept that this is what happens, which really makes me angry.
”Anya’s death was so unnecessary. The UK is well behind other countries when it comes to drug policy.”
Leeds Festival organisers Festival Republic were contacted for comment. Kate Porter, CEO of The Loop, says: “It is difficult to understand the extent of drug-related deaths at festivals in the UK as there isn’t a joined-up approach to collating this information.
”A database or similar would be helpful as we could look at contributing factors and work out what interventions could have reduced harm.
”What we do know, is that every drug death is potentially preventable. “