Mammoth Cave, Kentucky’s Redneck Rave took place from June 16-20 this past weekend, including live music, a demolition derby, a football game, a mud foot-race and goldfish racing. The event resulted in 48 criminal charges and 14 arrests including six for felonies, as well as incidents such as a woman getting strangled over an argument involving a blanket and one attendee slitting another’s throat. There were also several disturbing accidents throughout the event, including one attendee losing most of their finger when a lifted vehicle fell off of a jack and a man getting impaled by a tree branch due to a “freak accident.”
According to the Edmonson County Sheriff’s Office, most of the criminal charges were for drugs and alcohol-related offenses. There were other complaints of theft and assault made to the authorities present at the event as well. The six felony arrests included assault, strangulation and wanton endangerment offenses. In addition to the 48 criminal charges, there were also 63 traffic-related charges.
The man impaled by the tree branch was reportedly impaled while driving a side-by-side vehicle in the park when a 2-to-3 inch wide log broke through the floorboard and impaled him in the abdomen. The sheriff’s office reported that it would have gone through his back completely if it hadn’t been stopped by the steel plate behind his seat.
Hannah Michael Wilson-Malfe, the wife of the man impaled by the tree branch, stated, “Some of the reports say very false information. They blamed us on being reckless or just having ‘too much fun’ but as many know this is very false. It was a freak accident. There was no driving reckless or pushing limits. We were on a main tail going maybe 15mph.”
The tree branch incident and the car jack incident weren’t the only accidents that occurred at the event. There were also multiple broken bones, several dislocated fingers, lacerations and medical issues related to severe intoxication.
Sheriff Shane Doyle said that his staff had been “overwhelmed” by the two Redneck Raves that were held last year, which resulted in at least one death. No further information was revealed on those events. Because of that history, Doyle stated, “We all tried to figure out ‘how can we provide 24-hour coverage during this event.'” With too small a staff for proper 24-hour coverage, the department hoped to just be there in order to catch what they could. “They were going to do what they were going to do. We wanted to be good hosts…but we also wanted them to be good neighbors and visitors.”
They didn’t just count on being quick responders, but tried to act preventatively to best of their ability as well by setting up traffic checkpoints. Doyle stated, “The first vehicle that came through, we found meth, marijuana, and an open alcohol container. And then one of the occupants had two active warrants…We were like ‘well, this doesn’t bode well for the weekend.’”
As for the throat slashing, he commented, “They were intoxicated, they got into a fight, one of them slit the other one’s throat and then fled into the park.” The suspect reportedly hasn’t been found at this time. The alleged strangler was caught quickly, however, identified to be a 29-year-old Missourian. He denies the charges, but the police believe the woman’s report that he had choked her “until she was losing consciousness” due to evidence left on her neck.
Redneck Rave released their own statement on the event, saying “Huge shout out to the whole crew, both Redneck Rave & Blue Holler for putting in an ungodly amount of hours working in the hot ass sun from Monday to Monday. Thank you to all the artist who rocked out on stage… Afroman showing up will forever be legendary. Thank you to the police & fire department for working with us to make everything run as smooth as we can. We can definitely improve on a lot of things to make the one in October run a lot better… we are listening to all your suggestions. This was the biggest event we’ve ever done and with as many people and random things that popped up unexpectedly I feel like we all handled it very well. For the negative Nancy’s… we will put a complaint box by the porta johns next time for ya. With all that being said… I personally wanna say thank you to everyone who’s ever believed in what we’re doing… that is the reason I walk around and shake every single persons hand and tell them thank you… y’all have changed my life and I will be forever grateful. Last but not least… to Kevin the owner of Blue Holler… you have put absolute trust in me and I thank you for that. We have something great going and I can’t wait to see where this train leads to! REDNECK RAVE SHXT!”
Although it was more than just a music festival, the full concert lineup was never revealed for the event. This means that the Redneck Rave post mentioning Afroman “showing up” makes him the only confirmed artist to have played the event at this time, hence the press photo used for this story. However, the organizers billed it as both “America’s wildest and craziest country party” and as “the biggest event in country rap history,” which implies that it was mostly country and country-rap artists.
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