A 26-year-old man has been left critically ill in hospital after being assaulted at Manchester’s Parklife Weekender festival over the weekend. The man reportedly stepped in to protect his girlfriend from being repeatedly whacked with an inflatable toy whilst waiting for Snoop Dogg to take the stage.
According to the Manchester Evening News, the man was knocked unconscious in front of the festival’s Main Stage. Off-duty paramedics in the crowd gave the man heart massage at the scene before he was moved to a 20-bed medical facility on-site where his condition deteriorated.
He was then rushed to North Manchester General Hospital and has now been moved to Hope Hospital. He remains in a critical state as doctors treat a bleed to his brain. “His family are clearly distraught. His girlfriend and parents have been with him at the hospital throughout and that’s where our thoughts are,” said Chief Inspector Gary Simpson. “He’s still in a serious critical condition.”
A festival spokesperson told NME, “We pride ourselves on a history of Parklife Weekender without any incidents. We regret that an isolated incident has taken place at this year’s event, however medics were on the scene within minutes of it taking place. We will update as soon as we can and we are in constant contact with the medical services and police to help as much as possible.”
The event was unfortunately marred by two other serious assaults, one occurring an hour earlier involving a 17-year-old boy who required 100 stitches after he was slashed across the face in an ‘unprovoked’ attack in front of the main stage. A knifeman also slashed a 19-year-old man across the neck and arm while the victim’s 22-year-old brother had a bottle smashed over his face.
The 2014 instalment of the Manchester music festival made headlines before it even began, after angry fans took to social media to complain about stylised text messages sent out by the Parklife marketing team. The texts had been designed to look as if they’d come from the receiver’s ‘Mum’.
