JOHN COFFELT Staff Writer

According to a report presented to the Manchester Safety Committee at the Aug. 28 meeting, Manchester Police made 43 drug-related citations or arrests at the festival that topped 80,000 in attendance this past June.   

According to the report, there were 24 drug-related citations issued on-site. “The predominate drugs were mushrooms and marijuana,” Manchester Police Chief Bill Sipe said. “Although the whole smorgasbord was available out there.”

The chief said that the availability of NARCAN, helped tremendously with medical personnel’s treatment of a “few individuals under the influence of various substances.”

“They practically had a NARCAN distributor out there, which helped out tremendously,” Sipe said. “To our knowledge there were no recorded deaths.”

The department received 21 theft reports, mostly cellphones, 19 drug reports with associated arrests.

One concern that appeared this year was a large number of false 911 calls resulting from cell phone-related technology that auto reported traffic accidents.

Sipe said that the department received just under 1,000 of those calls.

“They kept us really busy in the area,” Sipe said. “It’s kinda a bittersweet thing. These accelerometers in these new telephones, if you drop them or stop suddenly, they are automatically dialing 911.”          

The plus side of that, according to Sipe is that it kept the Manchester Police active.

Festivalgoers with Apple Watches dancing and moving around registered the sudden gestures as possible crashes, then the owners couldn’t hear the watch asking for input if the crash was real, with no response, the device eventually initiating a 911 call.

A state public address alert helped reduce accidental calls by 40% by advising festivalgoers to shut off the feature. Crash Detection is available only on the Apple Watch Series 8, Apple Watch Ultra, and Apple Watch SE.