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[Rock Medicine] [Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, Inc]
Rock Medicine
crew handles crises at concerts
Free clinic's 'Rock Medicine' crew handles crises at concerts
Free clinic's 'Rock Medicine' crew handles crises at concerts
Oakland Tribune - Sunday, October 25, 1981
by George Estrada, Tribune Staff Writer
SAN FRANCISCO - You get up bright and early, too early. You have a beer for breakfast and rush to the stadium for the big rock concert, where you fight your way up close to the stage.
Triumphant, you pop a six-pack and guzzle some whiskey for dessert. You take a bennie, toot up several thick lines of coke, and have a hit or three of some window pane acid.
You're in a cloud, everything's a gas. Until the flood. Now the stadium is spinning.
Now your stomach is churning and you're feeling relay sick and you're freaking out and there's thousands of people around you.
You can't think straight and your head is pounding like a thousand jackhammers and now the crowd is screaming and now you know you're gonna pass out.
This doesn't happen to everybody. It does happen occasionally to those who indulge a bit too much in the name of rock and roll.
If this happens to you at a rock concert in the Bay Area, chances are that you'll wind up in the hands of the "Rock Medicine" crew from the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic.
The Haight medics worked last weekend's Rolling Stones concerts at Candlestick Park, which drew more than 130,000 fans in two days.
A total of 241 people received medical treatment during the Stones concert, many having fallen victim to "crowd syndrome", a combination of nausea, fatigue and overindulgence.
Drugs and alcohol actually were found to be responsible for the fewer medical problems than expected at the concerts. Cuts from broken bottles and similar injuries outnumbered drug problems by a 2-1 ratio, according to Free Clinic director, Dr. George "Skip" Gay. In the past, this ration was usually the reverse.
"We just had a more drug sophisticated crowd there," Gay said. "We got a lot of people wandering around stoned, but they knew how to deal with it."
A random survey by the clinic found that the median age for the Stones crowd was about 25, indicating that it was more savvy about drink and drugs than a younger crowd would be.
The understanding and accessibility offered by promoter Bill Graham's security personnel also went a long way toward solving the problems, the doctor said.
"The crowd control was tremendous." Gay said. "Graham is a master." And the rock promoter apparently has been a very good friend of the free clinic.
The two work on a contract basis for the given event. For the Stones, Graham paid the bill for equipment, a mobile unit and other things the medics needed to keep things under control. The promoter also holds concerts to benefit the clinic.
Graham and the free clinic have had this working relationship for the past decade, Gay said, and so fat "it's been like a big family."
The clinic's help is also first class, by all accounts. There were 27 emergency doctors, 35 paramedic, 60 emergency medical technicians (the search and rescue squads), and even a Harvard biostatistician on hand at Candlestick. The volunteer physicians were "the most highly skilled emergency physicians in the Bay Area," Gay said.
"I was so proud of them. Money couldn't buy the skill we had there."
Rock Medicine had its beginning with Graham's Led Zeppelin and Grateful Dead concerts at Kezar Stadium in 1972. Before then, it was "nothing but chaos" at large concerts, Gay said.
The medical care has now gotten so good that many of the techniques the rock doctors innovated - like "talkdowns" for people on bad drug trips - are now used in hospital emergency rooms around the country.
The life of a young man who suffered a 35 foot fall last weekend was saved because of the quick response of Gay's staff.
The 26 year old man from Modesto was brought almost immediately into the makeshift emergency unit set up in the 49ers team room and in 20 minutes he was on his way to San Francisco General Hospital, with multiple injuries to the head.
"This is a rare circumstance at these concerts," Gay said. "But when it does happen, we're there, just like the best MASH unit."
The Haight team's camaraderie adds a chemistry that makes the job that much more rewarding, Gay said.
"We all love each other and party together. But when the chopper lands, all the nonsense stops."
And the band plays on.
postscript
Skip married Penny, a Rock Medicine Volunteer, who went to RNP school, and they both volunteer a lotta shows. More about them when I get someone to write an update to this story.
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