Mother shares warning after son dies of drug overdose at San Bernardino music festival

By Leanne Suter

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    SAN BERNARDINO, California (KABC) — A heartbroken mother is sharing a warning for other parents after her son died of an apparent drug overdose at a popular music festival in San Bernardino.

Eli Rodriguez, 27, collapsed Saturday while he was attending the Nocturnal Wonderland festival with friends at Glen Helen Regional Park in San Bernardino.

His mother believes he died after taking drugs – possibly laced with something more powerful – at the festival but an autopsy is still pending to determine his cause of death and what substances were in his system.

Now Marcy Rodriguez is desperate for information and frustrated that none of her questions are being answered.

“I felt as if I was a stranger looking into somebody else’s life, that I couldn’t get information about,” she told Eyewitness News.

“The bottom line is, where does it come from? Where is it coming from? Who is distributing this? Who is giving it out?”

The Nocturnal Wonderland festival is now in its 27th year and has been held at the park since 2013. It features an array of electronic music acts as well as light shows, vendor booths and other performances.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that deputies responded to a report of an overdose at the event and a man was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Further details of the investigation were not immediately available.

Drug overdose deaths skyrocketed during COVID pandemic, UCLA study shows

Experts and health officials say not only are fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills more accessible, they’re also more dangerous.

Marcy Rodriguez is hoping the investigation is thorough and looks at who provided the drugs. At this point she’s not getting answers from her son’s friends or investigators.

“I honestly want an investigation. But I want it to go beyond just the surface of everything. I want it to go beyond the distributors and everything like that. Because so many family members’ young ones are passing away because of drugs that are being processed out.”

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