Woman Injured By Lollapalooza Gate Crashers

An Elgin woman suffered a neck sprain after a mob of gate crashers landed on her and her husband at Lollapalooza

Increased security and higher fences may have dissolved chances for Lollapalooza gate crashers to replicate their numbers from last year’s incidents, but their repeat efforts ended an Elgin woman’s day at the fest.

Cindy Glaser, 39, spent five hours in the emergency room at Northwestern Memorial Hospital after gate crashers hopping over port-a-potties trampled her and her husband, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

The couple had bought their Friday passes with the hopes of seeing Black Sabbath, but missed the performance and lost the $200 she spent on tickets to be treated for a severe cervical neck sprain, the Sun-Times reported.

Three of the estimated 20 crashers in the incident, including the one who landed on Glaser, were reportedly arrested, but the others dipped into the crowd before they could get caught, police said.

The group of fence hoppers was one of two reported gate-crashing mobs, an improvement from last year’s several hundred teens toppling the chain-link fences.

The festival attendance tied last year’s record number, and increased security guards, higher fences and stronger turf were implemented to counteract last year’s organized gate crashers and landscape destruction.

Grant Park Conservancy President Bob O'Neill told the Sun-Times it is “almost impossible” to avoid some incidents with 270,000 people in attendance.

Saturday storms forced the festival to evacuate the grounds, a process considered successful after more than 60,000 festival-goers and nearly 3,000 staff members were safely evacuated in just under 40 minutes.

The stormy Saturday brought back the festival’s notorious mud bath which left the conservancy in shambles in previous years, but O’Neill reportedly said that despite the two gate-crashing mobs he was satisfied with the limited number of incidents and “little to no” landscape damage.

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