Category Archives: Drugs

Some  60,000 college students descend on South Padre Island, Texas every year for  spring break as many dance the night away in clubs as well as guzzle booze all  day in the sun and wind up being sent to a makeshift medical tent.

The  days-long parties parties at the U.S. at Coca-Cola Beach, one paramedic  described the scene as being worse than Iraq.

The  carnage took place at a 32-bed mobile triage unit set up backstage to cope with  what the Travel Channel has dubbed ‘the largest beach party on the  planet.’

 

 

Yet  what is supposed to be a fun weekend of sun, sea and sand soon turned into  something far more sinister.

In  one day alone, there there were more than 60 casualties including at least 15  people who had taken drugs.

Among  them was a girl of 19 who ‘freaked out’ while on ecstasy.

Dozens  more, many of whom were underage, had drunk too much and either passed out or  collapsed in the arms of medics.

Padre,  as it is known, was recently voted the second most trashy Spring Break  destination by Code Magazine (Las Vegas was first) and it wasn’t hard to see  why.

The  mood could be summed up by the T-shirts on sale in the stores, all of which were  in garish neon capitals.

They  ranged from: ‘You only live once’, to the partygoers’ manifesto: ‘Alcohol and  Molly (another word for ecstasy) and party and sluts.’

Another  bestseller reads: ‘Don’t tell your madre what happened in Padre.’

Over  the last weekend there were things obvious to even the most casual observer that  would make any parent deeply concerned.

But  what was perhaps most shocking was the attitude of the authorities – who seem  compromised by the huge amount of money that the partying brings to their  economy.

Coca-Cola  beach sits in front of the Isla Grand Hotel on what should be a picturesque part  of the Texas coast on the border with Mexico.

Instead  it is littered with rubbish including thousands of discarded beer cans which are collected at the end of each day by Mexican immigrants (they get 65 cents a  pound for the recycling, one told me with a smile).

Given  that cocktails cost up to $9.50 each in the bars, the culture is all about  drinking on the beach, which the local authorities have helpfully  authorized.

That  puts them in the bizarre position of having thousands of underage girls and boys  breaking the law under their nose, but anyone who brings glass on the beach gets  a $500 fine.

Partygoers  stock up on beer and liquor at stores like Ben’s Liquor where you can get 1.75  liters of 40 per cent proof vodka for $11.99.

They buy  a beer bong for 99c at a beachfront store and then head to stage where they  dance around to ‘heart-thumping music.’

Around  1pm on Saturday things were still good natured.

Groups  of college students had dug trenches in the sand to make a table on which they  were playing beer pong.

Different  colleges had planted their flags in the sand and there were cheerful reunions as football teams who had played each other that season toasted their each other over a Bud Lite.

Corporate  sponsorship was everywhere. Aside from the Coca-Cola signs on the stage,  Vitaminwater sunglasses were being handed out and there was a Vitaminwater stage  where you could have your picture taken.

The  National Guard had sponsored a basketball court where games of 3 on 3 were  underway. Razor company Bic had set up a stage where you could get a free  shave.

The  crowd cheered during the sexiest man and sexiest woman contest.

Hip  hop blared out of the speakers.

It seemed  like good fun, but the darker side of things was never far away.

He  said: ‘I met this girl at the music festival that’s going on in town. She was  rolling (on ecstasy). I left and was back at my hotel and texted to ask if she  wanted to stop off at my hotel as it was on the way back to hers.

‘She  texted back: ‘OK, let’s f***.’

‘She came  over and we had sex and I fell asleep. She said she wanted to stay but I told  her no as she didn’t have a wristband for the hotel. I had snuck her in the back  otherwise it would have cost $30 for a night pass which I didn’t want to pay, so  she left.’

 

 

By  4pm, the mood on the beach had changed.

Arms  flailed everywhere, bodies writhed and dozens of teenagers danced in mobs to the pounding techno music.

In  front of me a teenage girl suddenly grabbed her female friend and started  grinding against her.

A crowd  of men formed and began shouting ‘t**s out! t**s out! which she did after initially refusing to do so.

Her  ‘reward’ was a slap on the buttocks from a male companion.

Another  girl in another ‘t**s out!’ circle flashed her breasts and was given a can of  Bud Lite by a man who said: ‘She’s one baddass b****!’

The  25,000 strong crowd would inexplicably roar at something, which caused others to  roar too and spray their beer into the air.

A  teenager sitting on someone’s shoulders bit into two cans of Bud Lite at the  same time, sending a shower of beer all around him.

A teenage  boy opened a can of Bud Lite then drank it off a girl’s breasts. When the story  was later recounted to another partygoer who was wearing a cap with the word  ‘t*****s’ on it, he said: ‘Awesome!’

During an aborted attempt to drink out of a beer bong, a girl ended up covered in Budweiser. He male friend said, pointing to her t-shirt: ‘You got it wet, take it off!’ He added, pointing to his large bottle of Miller Lite: ‘Whatever he says is the rules.’

Soon after the casualties began to appear.

A  portly woman who could no longer stand was hauled out of the crowd by two male  companions where she became abusive towards them.

A  teenage girl collapsed behind the toilets with saucer like eyes and vacant look  to her face.

 

 

Most  of them ended up at the medical tent behind the main stage, which was actually  two 16-bed mobile units which are designed to be deployed in wars or natural  disasters.
Each was  staffed by a nurse and paramedics and was set up to relieve the pressure on  hospitals and stop the teenagers being slung in a ‘drunk tank’ in the local  jail.

One  girl said she had been doing CPR on her 19-year-old cousin after she collapsed whilst dancing because a stranger had given her a white pill with ecstasy inside.

A  teenage boy was led in saying: ‘No drugs. I’m not dumb I’m just drunk.’

A boy of  a similar age was hauled in dripping with water having been hosed down outside  to cool him down, again that distant look to his eyes.

Other  cases were wheeled in and wheeled out.

A  teenage boy in a red sombrero who had vomited over himself was unable to talk  coherently and only managed a zombie-like groan.

A  pale-looking girl who looked no more than 20 wearing a bandana was pushed out on  a stretcher wincing with pain.

A  man in his 50s had apparently been taking Vicodin and drinking and had to be  restrained when he got violent. He wore a t-shirt with the slogan: ‘Drinking  alcohol comes with responsibilities.’ The woman he was with burst into  tears.

Those  who were treated on site were put in a cubicle made of plastic sheets, hooked up  to an IV to rehydrate them and left to sleep it off for however long it  took.

Looking  down the corridor of feet sticking out in the sickly yellow light streaming  through the tent ceiling, it looked like a makeshift morgue rather than a  hospital.

An EMT  shook his head and told me: ‘We had some military guys here who have served in  Iraq and they said they had never seen anything like this.’

 

 

By 4pm  the triage tent had handled around 60 patients mostly aged between 18 and 22.  Some 24 had been taken to hospital in the ‘vambulance’ — an air conditioned  van for the walking wounded, but others had been taken by ambulance.

But  it seems that day was not the worst of it – the previous year up to 93 patients  came through the doors of the tent every day, of which 34 had to be taken to  hospital.

Meanwhile  at the La Copa Inn nearby the party continued with the pool so packed with  dozens of partygoers dancing to more ear-splitting techno that it was almost  impossible to get in.

Two  girls on the shoulders of two male companions kissed each other to the cheers of  the crowd.

One  girl was groped by two different men as she cheered with her arms in the air,  oblivious to what happened.

Anyone  wondering why she had so many beads round her neck only had to recall ‘local  custom’ that if you give a girl some beads she has to show you her  breasts.

This  included Clayton’s, the largest beach bar in Texas, where Paris Hilton recently  made an appearance and where over the weekend Trojan condoms were launching  their new brand, called ‘Pure Ecstasy.’

After  that, who knows.

As  late as 3am, a group of men were burning the tire of their motorcycle right  outside the door of their Super 8 Motel room, making a racket that would have  woken up the entire hotel.

The  following day Coca-Cola beach was closed because last year at the site on the  same day Derek Madrigal, 21, a Brookhaven College journalism student from  Dallas, was stabbed multiple times by alleged Mexican gangsters.

The thinking was  that if the beach was closed there wouldn’t be a stabbing on the beach (though clearly it could just as easily happen elsewhere).

Instead thousands  of teenagers assembled there anyway because they had not been told  otherwise.

With  no music to focus the crowd’s energy, circles formed around teenagers fighting  each other including one yob with tattoos and a bloody cut to his  head.

Circles  also formed around girls with up to 30 men shouting ‘suck his c***!’ as opposed  to yesterday’s ‘t**s out!’

One  girl who showed her breasts was showered with beer, the symbolism of which was  hard not to read in crude sexual terms.

When  the police moved in there were a few flare-ups and we saw one student put in  handcuffs after police waded in and drew their batons to drag him  away.

Around  50 officers separated the crowd of 2,000 and kept them moving along the beach  until they dispersed into the side roads.

 

Back at  the triage tent there had only been seven casualties as the crowd had been moved  on, but they did include a man who was so drunk he didn’t realize his swimming  shorts had fallen down to his ankles.

At  that stage, only the most committed partygoer could have taken any  more.

Our  stay in Padre lasted for two days and two nights but some people had been there  for a week.

The  attraction is simple to understand – if you book in advance it can be very  cheap, and once you arrive the people are happy to sell themselves cheap,  especially it seems if you are a woman.

The  Isla Grand offers packages for $39 per person per night for a cabana including a  free bracelet for entry to the hotel, which normally costs $20, and free entry  to another bar.

With Love2Padre.com The Saida Towers nearby offers rooms at $35 per person per night for a  condominium right on Coca-Cola beach.

Springbreak.com advises  travellers that they need to budget between $200 and $300 per person per trip  spending money.

So  assuming that the 60,000 people who visited spent all of that and were paying  just $39 per person, Spring Break would bring in $20m to the local  economy.

The  reality however is likely to be significantly higher.

The  Padre Island tourism board was unable to provide a total figure for how much it  brought in and could only say that sales tax and hotel taxes raised nearly  $1m.

Even  that is a lot of money for the permanent residents, who number just  2,800.

Locals  claim that Spring Break is a blip – especially last week as it was Texas Week,  when all the Texas colleges come – and that for the rest of the year it is a  family orientated resort.

And  Padre Island wasn’t always like this, of course.

It  was first settled in 1804 when, according to the National Parks Service,  Catholic priest Padre Jose Nicolas Balli founded a ranch 26 miles north of what  has become the tourist area.

Unusually  for a man of the cloth, his religion did allow him to make a profit on the land,  which he duly did by raising large herds of cattle, sheep and  horses.

Come  the 1980s, that mercantile spirit seems to have resurfaced when ski instructors  from Colorado came down to Padre in the summer because of the  windsurfing.

Word  got out and here we are 30 years later with South Padre Blvd, the main road  through the island, packed bumper to bumper in both directions from afternoon  until the wee hours with more pick up trucks than a rodeo parking lot – and more  pick ups than a Columbian brothel.

Traffic  is so bad it can take two hours just to get over the bridge to get onto the  island, which is just 2.3miles long.

Padre  tourism spokeswoman Mary Hancock did not reply to requests for an  interview.

When  MailOnline ran into her at the medical tent backstage from Coca-Cola beach she  said that she ‘does not take much notice’ of lists like the one which ranked her  island as the second trashiest place to Spring Break.

She  said that people like that ‘have to have something to talk about’ and that Padre  was going to be on the list because of the limited number of places that could  be.

She  added: ‘We are working very hard to un-trash it’ before excusing herself and  moving away to deal with a French film crew.

Another  official who seemed remarkably calm about the madness unfolding around him was  South Padre Island Fire Chief Burney Baskett.

He  said that Spring Break was a ‘yearly ritual’ that the town goes through and that  it cost his department $30,000 each year.

The  number of staff more than doubles including the beach patrol, which is his  responsibility.

Emergency  calls also go up from between five and 10 a day to more than 50 with most for  partygoers who have been out in the sun too long and have collapsed through  dehydration.

Chief  Baskett said that the partygoers were a ‘pretty well behaved crowd’ — thoughts  that, in fairness, were echoed by local shopkeepers.

He  told MailOnline it was a ‘fine line’ as to whether to ‘tax impact’ outweighed  the negative impact on the community.

‘It’s the continuous argument we have with ourselves. Is it worth the cost in terms of money and what’s happening?

‘My  personal assessment is if they didn’t come here they would go somewhere else.  It’s not like you’re going to stop them partying so they might as well come  here.

‘This has been  going on in Padre for 30 years, we have a lot of experience. We know what to  expect.’

Another  unspoken consequence of the partying is crime.

According  to the South Padre Department of Public Safety there were 1,000 DWI arrests  during last year’s Spring Break, 9,400 speeding citations, 1,500 seat  belt-related offenses and 12,500 other citations.

There  were a total of 545 fugitives who were arrested – that’s people on the run from  the law who were picked up – and 402 felony arrests.

Over the weekend I was there there were no stabbings but there was a horrific DWI wreck which saw several people airlifted to hospital with broken collar bones, a broken pelvis and internal bleeding.

A 19-year-old who was on probation for resisting arrest was held by  police.

Padre  Island police chief Randy Smith was not available for interview, neither was  anybody from the Isla Grand Hotel or Coca-Cola.