A woman who was attacked at the Lost and Found Festival and could have sustained permanent injuries has blasted security for not intervening.
A woman who was attacked at the Lost and Found music festival over the weekend claims that festival security did not do anything to intervene and stop the assault. Queensland police are currently investigating the incident.
Riqui Vines, a student at Central Queensland University, alleges she was attacked by a woman “looking for a fight” while attending the Lost and Found music festival at the Rockhampton Showgrounds over the weekend. Vines claims she was knocked out during the attack and left with what could be permanent damage to her eye after the incident.
Vines alleged that security at the festival was more than lacking in breaking up the violence. Instead, she claims, the festival attendees were ‘left to sort it out themselves’.
“I have been to a lot of festivals before and if people were being too rough in the crowd, they always stop the show and ask people to calm down, but nobody stopped this.” Vines claimed.
She added: “It was too chaotic, too aggressive and while there was security there, it felt like the festival goers were left to sort it out themselves in the crowd.”
Vines claims the incident happened in the mosh pit. While dancing, she was warned to steer clear of another ‘aggressive’ attendee, also the alleged attacker. She was, however, ‘having too much fun to take much notice’.
“The crowd was pushing and shoving, which is normal in the mosh pit, and I got pushed into her and she hit me in the lip and busted my lip.” Vines claimed, adding that she did retaliate with physical violence on her part as well.
“I hit her back straight away to defend myself and then I told her to settle down because we were all there to have fun and we don’t want to get kicked out.” she alleged.
That, however, did not work. The crowd in the mosh pit resulted in Vines being pushed against her alleged attacker once again, and it exacerbated the situation.
“I was pushed into this girl and out of the blue, she just elbowed me in the eye and I fell back into other people and everything was a daze from there; she had concussed me, I didn’t know what had happened.” Vines claimed.
She also alleged that the attacker had hurt her aunt as well, who was accompanying her to the festival: “My aunty saw her going for me and grabbed her and she punched my aunty in the forehead, then my aunty got her to the ground and she crawled out of the mosh pit.”
Vines claimed she suffered a concussion during the incident and could not stand or move. As of now, she claims, her eye is swollen and she has trouble opening it. The verdict on whether this has caused permanent damage is still out.
“I have a concussion and I also have to go to an optometrist because I have blurry vision in the injured eye, but whether there is permanent damage, we will know once the swelling goes down.” she said.
