Florida man’s death second related to Electric Daisy Carnival
A 31-year-old Florida man who was struck by a truck after leaving the Electric Daisy Carnival on Monday morning has died.
Nevada Highway Patrol said the man died at University Medical Center on Saturday morning. Troopers received news about the death about 1 p.m. Saturday.
The man was identified by friends and family members on Facebook as Olivier Hennessy, from Ponce Inlet, near Daytona Beach.
Police said Hennessy was struck about 4:30 a.m. as he crossed Las Vegas Boulevard South in front of gate six at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
The driver of the truck, a 67-year-old Mesquite woman, was traveling about 35 to 45 mph when her truck struck Hennessy, who was attempting to cross the roadway.
She and her passenger, a man in his 80s, were uninjured. Hennessy was taken to UMC, where he remained in critical condition for almost a week.
Hennessy was the second EDC-related death reported, although both deaths happened outside the event's doors.
Emily McCaughan, a 22-year-old Scottsdale, Ariz., resident, died Monday morning after she fell from her Strip hotel room. Her death was not reported until Friday.
McCaughan, a pre-med student at the University of Arizona, was having paranoid delusions after taking drugs during the final night of the three-day festival. She took a cab back to Circus Circus, where she apparently fell more than 20 stories from her hotel room window.
Las Vegas police were still investigating the incident. The Clark County coroner's office has not released a cause of death.
McCaughan's family told the Review-Journal that she had taken an MDMA pill more commonly known as Ecstasy with a group of five friends, who allowed her to leave the festival by herself.
Her family said McCaughan had been panicked that a man had been stalking her and barricaded herself in her hotel room. She was not a regular drug user, her family said.
Ecstasy is a psychoactive drug with stimulant and hallucinogenic properties that can sometimes cause severe paranoia, although it typically reduces anxiety and produces a sense of euphoria. It's unknown whether the pills were purely MDMA or laced with another drug.
Contact reporter Mike Blasky at
mblasky@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0283.
