Tourist on drugs falls into campfire three times; badly burnt

SYDNEY, Australia — A French tourist who had reportedly taken hallucinogenic drugs suffered serious burns to almost half of her body when she fell into a campfire three times, Australian officials said Monday.

The woman was at the Mushroom Valley music festival on Australia’s east coast when she “wandered away into bushland to another campsite”, the Central Queensland Helicopter Rescue Service said in a statement.

“The 21-year-old woman suffered serious burns to her legs, torso and forearms after she fell into a campfire three times,” they added of the weekend incident near Yalboroo town.

“She also sustained serious cuts and lacerations to her arms and legs from a barbed wire fence.”

The woman, who has not been named, was returned to the festival by campers and taken by helicopter to a nearby hospital with “serious burns to 40 percent of her body”, the rescue service said.

Local newspaper the Mackay Daily Mercury said she had taken hallucinogenic drugs.

The festival’s organizers said some 1,500 people had attended the three-day event, with no other major incidents.

“The safety of festival patrons is always our highest priority and all efforts are made to create a safe gathering space, and so it is a disappointment for us to have an incident like this occur,” they said in a statement.

The festival’s Facebook page called for “no drugs” at the site and also offered alcohol and drug testing for revelers before they drove home.

Last month in the United States, a man died after breaking through a security barrier and running into a fire at the annual Burning Man festival in Nevada. /cbb