Belfast's Odyssey: Alcohol 'Disaster Zone'

Fourteen young people remain in hospital after falling ill at a concert at Belfast's Odyssey Arena on Thursday night.

Their condition has been described as stable.

On Thursday evening, around 60 people were treated for suspected drug or alcohol intoxication, causing a "major incident" to be declared.

This was due to the number of resources needed to be deployed in order to treat the patients.

Emergency services were called to the scene after the SOS Bus raised the alarm shortly after 8pm. When the ambulance service arrived, they dealt with casualties "at varying levels of consciousness".

It is understood a number of people attending the event had arrived at the venue already intoxicated. They had not been admitted into the dance by Odyssey management.

John McPoland, from Northern Ireland's Ambulance Service, said: "We arrived down at the scene and assessed and very quickly declared a major incident because of the numbers of people involved."

He added that a lot of young people attending the event "turned up already with lots of alcohol on board."

A couple of people were unconscious at the scene and doctors at Belfast's Mater, Royal and Ulster hospital were put on standby, with additional staff called in to deal with the emergency.

Of those admitted to hospital, their symptoms were said to be "consistent with drug and alcohol misuse".

Speaking to BBC Radio Ulster, Joe Hyland, who runs the SOS Bus NI voluntary service, said the scenes outside the Odyssey were like "a disaster zone".

He said: "It was like a disaster zone, but that was primarily because of one factor - it was a compression.

"There was a period of about 45 minutes where we had something like 19 young people - 14, 15 years old, who were extremely ill.

"Some of them were very, very ill - life-threateningly ill, where they had over indulged.

"We recognised an increasing threat to their life. We started to bring in paramedics, the Ambulance Service."

Mr Hyland added that when paramedics arrived they "recognised the numbers were too big" and had to call a major incident.

The concert was a DJ event and was being headlined by Dutch DJ Hardwell.

In a statement, Odyssey General Manager, Adrian Doyle, said: "It is our understanding that a number of patrons arriving to attend a concert by Dutch DJ act Hardwell have required medical attention, having already been intoxicated on their arrival at the complex.

"These patrons were not granted entry to the Odyssey Arena, and were treated by the Ambulance Service outside.

"As with any concert, the safety of our patrons is our absolute priority at all times and we are very confident that we have sufficient staff on site to maintain a safe and enjoyable concert."

The concert continued as normal inside the venue, but as word of the incident was announced by the media, many parents of young people who were attending the over-16s concert could not get in touch with their children due to reception issues.

As the concert came to an end at around 11pm, large numbers of parents were waiting outside the Odyssey Arena to try and find their child.

(JP/CD)