Two Dead, 57 Hospitalized After Fla. Music Festival
June 01--Katie Bermudez had just turned 21 the week before she left her parents' Kissimmee house for a Tampa music festival Saturday that preceded her and a 22-year-old man's death.
Her mother, Nancy Bermudez, said the Valencia College student she described as "not a party girl" was "so excited" to go to the event with a friend.
"She was a good, wholesome kid," Nancy Bermudez said. "But bad things can happen to good kids."
Katie Bermudez died Monday after being taken by ambulance to a hospital from the Sunset Music Festival at Raymond James Stadium Sunday. Nancy Bermudez said doctors told her the formerly "healthy" Katie Bermudez suffered a high temperature, fast heart rate and brain swelling.
Alex Haynes, of Melbourne, also died after attending the same music festival on Sunday, Tampa police said in a news release. The medical examiner's office is not immediately reporting a cause of death in either case.
Aside from the two deaths, 57 other concert-goers were hospitalized.
Nancy Bermudez said the "unanswered questions" relating to her daughter's death and the other hospitalizations are making the mourning process even more difficult. If an autopsy shows drugs were involved, Nancy Bermudez said she would suspect someone may have drugged her daughter.
"This is not what Katie was about," Nancy Bermudez said. "I just want from this justice for my daughter and others if there were bad intentions."
Police also reported 25 felony arrests, eight misdemeanor arrests and 16 marijuana civil citations at the festival.
The Associate Press contributed to this report.
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