Are there any partygoers pricked with needles in Kaatsheuvel this weekend? The answer to that question is as brief as it is unsatisfactory: no one knows for sure. What is certain is that there is one report and several statements with the police. But what can the police do with the phenomenon, of which it is not even clear yet whether it is a phenomenon, or whether it really exists? And how do GPs view it?
“We are still investigating what happened in Kaatsheuvel and whether something actually happened.” Police spokesman Lieke van Avendonk cannot emphasize it often enough: it is by no means certain that at a party on Anton Pieckplein this weekend people have become victims of the now internationally much-discussed ‘needle spiking’.
What is certain:
- Six people visited the first aid post during the Pleinfestival n Kaatsheuvel, with the suspicion/ fear of having been pricked.
- This has led to at least one report of assault and several statements.
- An 18-year-old woman became unwell at the party and had to be taken to hospital.
- The police are investigating. That is in the hands of the Forensic Investigation Department.
- The general practitioners in Kaatsheuvel did not receive any calls this weekend from Pleinfeesters who had become unwell. The police made an appeal to report to the doctor especially if you had complaints. But no one called, according to a call from Omroep Brabant on Monday morning.
The ongoing police investigation consists largely of talking. Spokesperson Van Avendonk: “With the people who visited the first aid post, how did their night out go? And with the people who were working there, what were seen and found? And with the doctors in the hospital, who who became unwell. Of course we really want to know what made her sick.”
Camera images of the Square Festival are also being viewed, the spokesperson says. And then the Forensic Investigation department still has the option of doing a physical examination itself. Van Avendonk cannot say whether that in the specific case ‘Pleinfeest Kaatsheuvel’ has also happened or is still planned.
No calls to GPs
The telephones at the various general practitioners in the village therefore remained silent after the call made by the police. If people still report, they will be invited to the consultation hour, so Omroep Brabant will be informed about the various practices.
General practitioner Van Laarhoven: “It is very difficult to trace, a shot is often hardly visible. After having a flu shot you sometimes see nothing at all, for example.” If people have also drunk alcohol or used drugs, it is also very difficult to say why someone is not feeling well, the GP continues.
And then there’s the time factor. Blood tests, for example, are of little use now that almost two days have passed: “That time span is actually too long.”
Van Laarhoven emphasizes that reporting to the police is always useful. “In this way numbers can be mapped.”
At EenVandaag, experts called the secret drugging of people with a needle ‘almost impossible’ last week. But they can’t rule it out either. There are reports and even declarations in various places in the Netherlands, but no hard evidence has been found.
An excellent recipe for unrest, all in all. “Very violent what happened”, a visitor to the Pleinfeest told Omroep Brabant this weekend. But perhaps nothing has happened at all, the police spokesperson emphasizes once again. “As soon as we know more, we will report it.”
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