AUSTIN, Texas — The Austin City Limits Music Festival starts this Friday, Oct. 7.
Crews have worked to get the stages ready, along with all that goes into putting on a festival for thousands of people with more than 100 music groups. Austin first responders have also been preparing.
"We will have multiple special response units, or SRUs that we call them. Essentially, it’s like a golf cart with a stretcher on the back. We'll have those on the ground, we'll have dedicated transport ambulances," said Austin-Travis County EMS spokesperson Cpt. Cristina Stedman.
Stedman said that despite some staffing challenges the department is dealing with, they will have enough paramedics and first responders at the event.
"We partner with other public and private agencies to help make sure the festival is fully covered medically speaking, as well as some of our other partner agencies, like the Austin Fire Department," she said.
Stedman said they respond to several medical calls at festivals like ACL.
"We will see the heat-related illness. You know, it's ACL, people are going to be out there, they're going to drink. We'll see some alcohol-related issues, and just regular slip, trips, trauma, all kinds of stuff," Stedman said.
Stedman said people need be to prepared and stay hydrated. Also, if attendees are using scooters to get to and from the event, they need to be extremely careful looking out for cars. Stedman said there have been many scooter accidents in Austin this year and some have been deadly.
"Mind where pedestrians are. Mind where other scooters are. Mind where vehicles are. And, again, just make sure you're being as safe as possible and staying as alert as possible," she said.
Stay up to date with the latest ACL news by visiting our ACL page.
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