Update: 12 hospitalized after fights cause panic at Atlantic Beach Bike Week

Twelve people were sent to the hospital after fights created a mass panic at concerts in Atlantic Beach Bike Week, authorities said. Any reports of mass casualties are false, wrote Atlantic Beach Police Interim Chief Carlos Castillo in a release.

During concerts late Saturday night, fights erupted in the town of Atlantic Beach — which hosts the motorcycle rally — and caused the crowd to panic. People were injured as they were trampled trying to leave the festival, Castillo wrote. At 11:57 p.m. Horry County Fire Rescue dispatched to Atlantic Beach due to a disturbance with injuries, according to a social media post. EMS brought 12 people to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries and an additional six signed a medical transport waiver. Law enforcement officials saw the fights but believed agitators ran and disappeared into the crowd, Castillo said in an email to The Sun News. No one has been arrested. The music paused but the festival continued until it closed at 3 a.m. Celebrations in Atlantic Beach will continue until 3 p.m. Monday, police said. “We sincerely regret that anyone was injured, but we also regret the unfactual information that is being falsely spread about the Atlantic Beach Black Pearl Cultural Heritage and Bike Festival,” Castillo wrote. In the aftermath, on a rainy Sunday morning, the ground and area near the concert stage was littered with trash, shoes and sunglasses. Hilton Dewitt, who was at the event, told the Sun News there may have been an argument on the street near Ocean Boulevard, which caused concert goers to rush toward the stage.

Dewitt said it happened about 1 a.m.

“They started panicking,” Dewitt said of the crowd. “It was a stampede.” Atlantic Beach Bike Week, also known as Black Bike Week, happens annually during Memorial Day weekend, among other festivals and concerts that take place in the town of Atlantic Beach. Bikers also spread out in the area, spending time at the Myrtle Beach Mall parking lot and in downtown Myrtle Beach.

Read more at: The Sun News