More than 40 hospitalized after catered meal at Coachella Music Festival, officials say

Hundreds of people ate a catered meal at the Coachella Music Festival, and more than three dozen people ended up in the hospital afterward.

Health officials in California are trying to figure out why dozens of shuttle bus company employees got sick after eating the meal at the music festival, Riverside University Health System said.

As of Tuesday, April 26, more than 40 people were taken to three hospitals within the Coachella Valley near Palm Springs, health officials said.

“They complained of various symptoms, including stomach cramps, dizziness, nausea, and diarrhea, after eating dinner that was catered for employees of a transportation company that provided shuttle service for the Coachella Music Festival,” officials said in a news release. “A handful of patients were admitted to hospitals.”

Riverside County public health and environmental health are working together to determine what made the people sick. They don’t know how many people were affected.

Health officials said people who attended the music festival haven’t been affected.

“This could involve hundreds of interviews, but it is important to gather as much information as possible so that we can determine what happened and try to prevent it from happening again,” Kim Saruwatari, director of Riverside County Public Health, said in the news release.

People who attended the dinner should call a public health representative.

This story was originally published April 27, 2022 at 2:27 PM with the headline "More than 40 hospitalized after catered meal at Coachella Music Festival, officials say."