Four hospitalized after man drives ATV into crowd at Canadian music festival

Seven people were injured and four hospitalized after a man stole a side-by-side ATV and drove it into the crowd at Princeton, British Columbia’s Curiosity Music Festival on June 30. The festival released a statement about the incident on Facebook:

On June 30th, 2019 at approx 230 am an incident occurred at our event.
This isolated incident occurred causing injuries to be sustained by multiple guests.
While responding to a medical call, our on site medical staff was assaulted. During the assault, the medical vehicle was hijacked. The hijacked UTV was then driven through fencing and down an embankment into an out of bounds area. With security in pursuit, the hijacked vehicle then proceeded at high speed towards our stage. The individual drove through the crowd and crashed into the stage injuring 7 people. 4 were transported by BC ambulance to local hospitals for treatment. The individuals suffered non life threatening injuries. All individuals will recover.
Our medical and security staff acted accordingly and treated all parties saving further injury. The BC ambulance services complimented our medical staff on the fast actions and triage while awaiting their arrival.
The perpetrator was apprehended within seconds of incident and detained until police arrived to arrest and remove from scene. The perpetrator faces numerous charges including robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and more to be determined as the investigation continues.
This was an isolated incident with unknown factors.
Curiosity Music festival LTD and its staff would like to reassure all patrons and those involved that this was an unpredictable event.
Security and medical staff acted appropriately to the incident and are not at fault in any way.
Counseling was offered to all those involved in this incident at the event. Ongoing support for the victims and any involved is available through local harm reduction and trauma teams in their community.
Curiosity Music Festival would like to extend its sincerest apologies to all the victims involved.
This incident was unpredictable and all staff acted in the best possible way to respond and contain any further injury or threat.
Big Thanks and respect to Elite Security & First Aid Services and Milner Consulting Services for providing the best services available for festivals.

Princeton Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) say they are considering charges of robbery and assault with a weapon against the attacker, a man in his 20s who was being treated in the first aid tent when he assaulted staff members and stole the vehicle, eventually crashing into the stage, Constable James Grandy told CBC News. He was caught by festival security, then arrested by police, and alcohol or substance abuse is believed to have been a factor in his behavior.

Festival attendee Jessica Laplante posted to Facebook about witnessing the incident, and injuries sustained by she and her boyfriend, Dustin Stoelwinder, who says he fractured his neck:

Went to curiousity music festival this weekend, started off as an amazing weekend, celebrating with friends when all of a sudden Dustin and I were hit by a side by side atv type vehicle. I went down first, when I woke up seconds after, I saw Dustin 10 feet away from where I went down. I heard screams and saw the atv crash into the stage, hitting approx 5 people. I waited for the ambulance as I took over from the medic holding Dustin head and watched them cut off his coats, Hoodie and shirt while talking about possible neck spinal injury. Other patients were transported to hospitals further away thst had cat scans and we were brought to Merrit. They did an x ray in Merrit and they said they didn’t see broken bones in his neck. Went to Kelowna emergency this morning as Dustin was in major pain still and my ankle swollen and major bruising. I don’t have any broken bones… Dustin had a cat scan and turns out he has a fractured neck. He has to stay the night in the hospital and go for an MRI scan in the morning.
Please send healing… this event has really traumatized both of us.