3 die during HARD Summer Music Festival in Fontana

FONTANA >> San Beardino County Coroner’s investigators are working to determine what led to the deaths of three people who attended the HARD Summer Music Festival this weekend in Fontana, officials said.

Jodi Miller, spokeswoman for the San Beardino County Sheriff’s Department, said the cause of death for the man and two women was still unknown. The extreme heat could not be ruled out as a possible cause of death, officials said.

Two of the deaths occurred Saturday and one Sunday, according to sheriff’s authorities.

This is the first time the festival was held at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana after negative attention for similar electronic dance events just west in Pomona sent organizers looking for a new venue.

On Aug. 1, 2015, two teens — Katie Dix, 19, of Camarillo and UCLA student Tracy Nguyen, 18, of West Covina — died of what authorities say were drug overdoses during the first day of the HARD Summer festival also at the Fairplex.

According to Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis, the Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center treated nearly 30 people who attended last year’s festival for alcohol- and drug-related ailments.

During this year’s rave in Fontana, there were a total of nine medical transports from the two-day festival and more than 300 people were arrested, sheriff’s officials said. Most of those arrests were for public intoxication.

Deputies intercepted and arrested someone trying to bring in drugs, including mushrooms, marijuana and methamphetamines, into the festival.

The music festival attracted 146,000 fans.

More to come.