HARD Summer Music Festival at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Ca., Saturday, July 30, 2016.
San Bernardino County Coroner’s investigators are working to determine what led to the deaths of three people who attended the HARD Summer Music Festival this weekend at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, officials said.
San Bernardino County Coroner’s investigators are working to determine what led to the deaths of three people who attended the HARD Summer Music Festival this weekend at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, officials said.
Jodi Miller, spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, said the cause of death for the man and two women was still unknown. The extreme heat could not be ruled out, officials said.
The Coroner’s Office identified the three as:
• Derek Lee, 22, of San Francisco, who died at 12:10 a.m. Sunday at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton
• Alyssa Dominguez, 21, of San Diego, who died at 2:10 a.m. Sunday at Kaiser Foundation Hospital of Fontana
• Roxanne Ngo, 22, of Chino Hills, who died at 3:04 a.m. Monday at Loma Linda University Medical Center
The deaths are being investigated individually and, at this time, are not believed to be related, according to a statement at the coroner’s website.
This is the first time the festival was held at the Auto Club Speedway after negative attention for similar electronic dance music events in Pomona sent organizers looking for a new venue.
On Aug. 1, 2015, two teens — Katie Dix, 19, of Camarillo and UCLA student Tracy Nguyen, 18, of West Covina — died of what authorities say were drug overdoses during the first day of the HARD Summer festival at Pomona Fairplex.
According to Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis, the Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center treated nearly 30 people who attended last year’s festival for alcohol- and drug-related ailments.
Supervisors created a task force after the teens died to find ways to make events like HARD safer. The LA County Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance in March that calls for events at county-owned venues, such as Fairplex, to have detailed threat assessments before taking place.
But before the March ordinance passed, Fairplex officials announced they had no contracts on their calendar with the HARD Festival. In April, Auto Club Speedway officials announced the venue change.
During this year’s rave in Fontana, there were a total of nine medical transports from the two-day festival and more than 300 people were arrested, sheriff’s officials said. Most of those arrests were for public intoxication.
Deputies intercepted and arrested someone trying to bring in drugs, including mushrooms, marijuana and methamphetamines, into the festival.
The music festival attracted 146,000 fans.