The dad of a 17-year-old girl who died after taking MDMA at a Dreamland gig believes medical staff working at the event did not have enough training, an inquest has heard.

Emily Stokes suffered a cardiac arrest at QEQM Hospital in Margate after attending the drum and bass concert on June 29.

The second day of an inquest into the teen’s death was held at Oakwood House in Maidstone today, and heard in detail about the medical facilities available at Dreamland, Emily’s transferrence to hospital, and what happened when she got there.

Evidence was given by Daniel Peddle, who was one of the Kent Central Ambulance Service (KCAS) crew members who took Emily to the hospital.

He, along with the driver of the truck, Rachel Clifton, both had a training level of First Response Emergency Care (FREC) level 4.

This qualification is gained through a five-day classroom-based course, along with three workbooks to be completed alongside working in the field.

The training provided no specifics on treating patients who had suffered drug overdoses, but both Mr Peddle and Ms Clifton said they had some knowledge on treating patients who had taken opioids.

Neither had dealt with a patient suffering from an MDMA overdose before, or had professional knowledge of how to treat it.

Furthermore, they did not have the clinical scope to administer suitable medication, and the ambulance did not have any drugs on board, which would have assisted Emily’s condition.

The staff only had the facilities for “immediate life support such as airway management and CPR”, and are usually tasked with transferring patients from hospital to hospital, the inquest heard.

It was Ms Clifton’s first event working for KCAS, and Mr Peddle’s second.

Similarly, at the Dreamland medical tent, which was run by contractor Integrated Medical Services (IMS), there were no facilities to give a patient IV fluids.

Managing director of IMS, Chris Young, along with two members of IMS staff, also gave evidence to coroner Catherine Wood yesterday.

The company subcontracted KCAS to operate medical services at the event, where only one private ambulance, belonging to KCAS, was stationed.

Staff told how Emily had a heart rate of 200bpm, an extremely high temperature of 40.9 and was acting agitated and delirious. She had earlier that afternoon been spotted slumped on the floor by a bar manager.

After the colleagues gave evidence, Emily’s father, John Stokes, was given the opportunity to ask questions and speak.

He said: “It seems to me no one had the right level of training

“For such a big event with lots of young people there, nobody on site had enough qualifications. I don’t get it.”

The court also heard discrepencies on whose responsibility it was to decide on Emily being blue-lit to to hospital and ringing ahead to give QEQM a ‘pre-alert’ that she was coming.

Mr Peddle said: “We have to obtain signed permission from the clinician who is ordering the transport.

“In the event of the patient deteriorating on board, we can make that decision ourselves.

“Mr Young was between other patients.

“At first he initiated a conversation with us, explaining that the patient needs to go to QEQM as quickly as possible.

“That’s when I asked if the patient was undergoing a blue light transfer, and if they were being pre-alerted and was told no.”

He added that Emily’s condition only deteriorated once she reached QEQM.

However, yesterday Mr Young said he had no contact with Mr Peddle, and added: “There would be an expectation that the medics handing the patient over would tell them if it was a blue light response, but ultimately it’s down to the ambulance staff.”

He also said he would expect the ambulance crew to issue a pre-alert to the hospital, not the medical tent staff.

Addressing Mr Peddle, Emily’s dad asked: “When you arrived at the tent, you described it was busier than usual.

“You had been handed over the patient, Mr Young decided he wasn’t going to do a pre-alert or blue lights.

“Bearing in mind it was a child - Emily looked like a child - could you not question or override that?”

Mr Peddle responded: “We can only work off the guidance of the clinical lead.

“Emily’s condition was concerning, which is why we asked if she needed to be blue-lighted.”

Mr Stokes said again: “But did you consider questioning it?”

To which the medic replied: “No, I didn’t.

“I don’t have the experience with MDMA use compared to others on site, so I had to go with what they say.”

The inquest also heard that Mr Peddle, father to a 17-year-old girl himself, and Mr Stokes had met in the lobby of QEQM in the early hours of June 30, after Emily had died.

Mr Peddle recalled: “My crewmate had been broken by what happened.

“I was struggling, but I pressed on because in my mind there were more kids who needed to get to hospital.

“This was a massive incident.

“When I saw you it hit me like a brick that if my girl was in the same situation, I don’t know what I would do.”

Ms Clifton said some of her memories from the day are blurry, and she suffers from PTSD, forcing her to quit her role at KCAS.

The inquest then heard from the triage nurse at QEQM, Emma Swinton, who met Ms Clifton and Mr Peddle when they arrived to admit Emily.

Speaking about the situation overall, she described how there were 20 admissions from the Dreamland concert, and the majority of them were drug-related.

The nurse recalled asking Mr Peddle if he minded waiting his turn when approached, as she had other patients to deal with first. Ms Clifton had stayed with Emily.

“This was because I not made aware of the clinical situation. I would not have left a 17-year-old with a temperature of 40.6 and heart rate of 200bpm in the queue,” she told the inquest, adding: “I have never seen a temperature that high in my 16 years of nursing."

Mr Swinton says she did not ask the crew for observations, as they would normally tell them her themselves, if there were any concerns. She added that it was very rare for private crews to arrive at QEQM.

Once Ms Swinton was made aware of Emily's heart rate and temperature by a paramedic who had assisted in bringing the teenager into triage, she was rushed into the resusciation department.

About five minutes later, she suffered a cardiac arrest and doctors administered CPR for more than an hour. Emily was pronounced dead at 6.05pm, after she left Dreamland in the ambulance at 4.16pm.

Consultant in emergency medicine at QEQM Andrew Mortimer told the coroner that medical staff at dance events, when dealing with MDMA toxicity, should at least strip the patient off and cool them down with water.

He said: “When there’s lots of young people present and drug use will be likely, particularly at a dance event, I would expect the medical facilites to be able to recognise and risk asses the severity of MDMA toxicity and administer first aid.

“That would be at least strip the patient off and cool them down with water, put the fans on.

‘I have never seen a temperature that high in my 16 years of nursing...’

“Dance events happen. If you’ve got a planned dance event you're going to need to plan to have some casualties associated with drug use.

“Basic cooling can be put some ice on patient, portable shower, just something to cool them down.”

The inquest previously heard from an IMS employee who initially treated Emily at Dreamland, and who said they didn’t take off her clothes to preserve her dignity, and gave her water to drink.

Mr Mortimer added that for someone with a temperature as high as Emily’s, giving them water would not help bring it down.

He said that employing various methods of cooling Emily down could have extended the time they had to treat her when she got to hospital, before going into cardiac arrest.

He explained: “There are things that could have extended that window by reducing her core body temp before she got to hospital, but unfortunately they weren’t.

“Tepid sponging, fans, putting someone in shower, icing armpits - these could have extended the window we had to treat emily. As it was we had 10 to 15 minutes between her arriving at resus and going into cardiac arrest."

He added that if hospital staff had been alerted to Emily’s arrival they would have been ready to administer treatment, such as intubation, which involves putting a tube down a mouth or nose into the trachea, which would have stopped further heat production

He added: “The likelihood is if you had given us an hour to get the temperature down, it’s unlikely she would have arrested at that point.

"Give me 45 minutes and I can get the temperature down half to one degree - and that might have made a difference in this case."

Yesterday, the court also heard evidence from Shane Guy, the operations director of Dreamland.

He said 82 people were found with drugs at the event, “probably all” during the queue search, but noted this was a number he’d expect for an event of this nature.

Emily was searched upon entry but no drugs were found upon her.

Emily was in care and her former social worker also spoke and described the teenager as a “remarkable young lady”.

The three-day inquest continues.