Alex Ross-King’s mum speaks out after her tragic death at FOMO music festival

A heartbroken mother has recalled the moment she found out her daughter had gone into cardiac arrest after overdosing at a festival.

Alex Ross-King, 19, died after taking three doses of MDMA at the FOMO music festival in Parramatta in January 2019.

The teenager took one pill while boarding a party bus from her home on NSW’s Central Coast, and two pills when they arrived about 12.30pm.

Alice told friends she took the pills before the festival instead of inside because she was afraid of being caught by the police.

The teen would be pronounced dead about nine hours later.

Alice’s mother Jennie reminded her daughter to drink plenty of water at the festival during their last conversation. She said Alice had been a good, smart and very curious teenager

Her mother Jennie recalled the last conversation she ever had with her daughter during an emotional interview with YouTuber Jamie Zhu.

“I just said to her, ‘honey, it’s really hot, make sure you drink lots of water and stay cool,’ and she said, ‘Yes mom, don’t worry, I love you, bye,'” she said .

“And that was the last time I spoke to her.”

Alice’s friends, Mackenzie and Petra, were also present at the festival.

“She took one on the bus, just like I did,” Mackenzie said.

“When we got there, she still had two. Instead of taking it, she decided to take both at the same time.”

A few hours later, Petra knew something was wrong when Alice had trouble keeping eye contact with her and started tripping over people.

The group was spotted by a wandering medical officer who effectively dragged Alice to the medical tent with the help of her friends.

A paramedic assessed Alice and noted that she had “spontaneous and uncontrollable large muscle movements, signs consistent with serotonin toxicity.”

Her temperature was 41 degrees Celsius, so paramedics applied ice packs. Alice’s jaw was tight, her pulse was pounding, and her breathing was short and ragged.

Alice was behaving erratically and bordering on insulting, which her friends said was very uncharacteristic.

“They were clearly asking me questions about what she had taken, and then I started telling them everything,” Petra remembers.

Alice was rushed to Westmead Hospital and lost consciousness en route. Doctors intubated her and she was placed on a ventilator.

Ten minutes after arriving at hospital, she went into cardiac arrest, with an ‘agitated’ Mackenzie calling Jennie to let her know.

Alice (pictured with her mother Jennie) went into cardiac arrest just 10 minutes after arriving at Westmead Hospital after taking three doses of MDMA at a music festival

Petra (right) and Mackenzie (left) both attended the FOMO festival with Alice

‘I could tell something wasn’t right and I said, ‘mate, what’s wrong? What is going on?’ and he didn’t know what to say or how to say it,” Jennie recalled.

An emergency doctor called and asked if she was driving. He asked her to stop and told her that Alice had gone into cardiac arrest.

Doctors administered large doses of adrenaline for four hours of resuscitation efforts. Ultimately it was decided to discontinue mechanical resuscitation.

A toxicology report found the MDMA concentration was well into the lethal range.

Petra was standing outside the hospital when the doors opened and she saw her friends inside, staring at her and shaking their heads.

“That’s when I knew: I just fell to the ground,” she said through tears.

Jennie said Alice had been her “only baby.”

‘What is my purpose in life now? What shall I do?’ she remembered thinking.

A toxicology report found that Alice had MDMA levels well into the lethal range

Jennie has since spoken out about changing the law and educating young people.

She now wants to launch a podcast to educate young people about the risks of substance use at festivals and equip parents with the knowledge they need to keep their children safe.

“I just want young people to be armed with the information, not for parents to say, ‘well, my kids don’t do drugs.’ Okay, that’s great, but are you going to bet their lives on it? Because that’s what you do,” Jennie said.

“Alex didn’t do drugs, before me she didn’t do drugs. But she did.”