Peace, love, music, health care, and irony at the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival

Abstract

Myron Gittell’s 2009 book, Woodstock ’69: Three Days of Peace, Music, and Medical Care, is a compelling treatise referencing health care at Woodstock. Gittell’s work partially informs this article about the iconic 1969 Woodstock Music Festival. About 400,000 people attended the concert, though organizers had initially planned for only 50,000. Helicopter surveillance preceding the festival revealed that thousands of spectators had already arrived. Directors realized they had the potential for one of the “greatest human tragedies in modern times” and marshaled local authorities, health care providers, local townspeople, the US Army, and an eccentric outfit from New Mexico known as the Hog Farmers, whose extraordinary efforts averted public health disaster. Drug overdoses presented problems but humane management by the Hog Farmers was exquisitely successful. Two deaths occurred and 3000 first aid visits were recorded. One captivating aspect of Woodstock was a film interview with the gentleman who cleaned the portable toilets. This 3-minute dialogue portrayed, unexpectedly and in unusual fashion, Woodstock’s sociological complexities. The release, in 2018, of yet another high-profile film depicting Woodstock, and the bountiful journalistic efforts that ensued in the summer of 2019 reminiscing upon Woodstock’s 50th anniversary, remind us of society’s abiding fascination with this event.

And people talk about the miracle of Woodstock, how it was that that event stayed peaceful, stayed relatively injury-free and tragedy-free even amid the crazy chaos of the whole thing. And I put it down to the values that that generation that by that time honed, … this sense of helping each other out and living a different kind of life. —Barak Goodman, director of Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation¹

Less than a month after Apollo 11 landed the first men on the moon in July 1969, the Woodstock Music Festival took place on a dairy farm near Bethel, New York. The moon landing was instantaneously heralded worldwide, while the Woodstock Music and Art Fair: An Aquarian Exposition needed the lens of retrospection for society to fully cherish its significance. The more immediate repercussions for the health and safety of the 400,000 attendees and for the prevention of potentially disastrous medical consequences provides an absorbing story. The abundant beneficence and comity of New York State health officials, the US Army, the medical community, and local citizens are its principal themes.

The organizers, representing Woodstock Ventures, were rebuffed in their attempts to secure a location in Woodstock, New York. Only 1 month before the starting date of Friday, August 15, did they identify an event site, on land belonging to Mr. Max Yasgur, who received $40,000 for his hospitality. Though not initially appreciated, the unexpected difficulty in securing a venue was the genesis of what could have precipitated a gargantuan public health disaster. Their attention diverted by the venue problem, the organizers invested less effort into planning for food, water, sanitation, and medical care (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Though not scheduled to do so, Richie Havens performed the opening act at Woodstock, as he and his band members were the only musicians who had managed to get there. Photo: Mark Goff.

In 2009, the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, Myron Gittell published Woodstock ’69: Three Days of Peace, Music and Medical Care (Figure 2).² Mr. Gittell, who later trained as a nurse and emergency medical technician, lived nearby and was recruited by a friend to sell Sno-Cones—“an early version of fluid replacement therapy,” Mr. Gittell recalled. The literature encompassing Woodstock is voluminous, but Gittell’s book and a 2010 article by Gittell and Kelly published in the Journal of Emergency Medical Services³ represent the few published items focusing on the medical aspects of Woodstock.

Figure 2.

In 2009, on the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, Myron Gittell, RN, EMT, published his book about medical care at Woodstock.

A recurring journalistic theme that surrounded Woodstock, both medical and otherwise, was the tranquility that prevailed despite the challenging conditions. Understanding this serenity requires some sociocultural background. The Summer of Love had been ushered in by the 1967 Monterey International Pop Music Festival. The use of hallucinogens such as LSD and marijuana was on the rise, the so-called hippie movement was burgeoning, and anti–Vietnam War sentiment was reaching its apogee. Protest songs from Peter, Paul, and Mary, Bob Dylan, and other musicians saturated the airwaves. Iconic photos of dissenters, armed with a single flower, staring down the military, appeared in the media. Flower-power and the countercultural movement were approaching full gestation. The “Age of Aquarius” had arrived on the heels of the play Hair, and the opening act’s popular song, Aquarius, established a symbiotic relationship with the hippie culture. According to that song, the “moon was in the seventh hour”; although it was not clear exactly what that meant, an anomalous goodness infused the Age of Aquarius and enveloped Woodstock.

THE PRELUDE: HOG FARMERS AND MEDICAL PREPARATIONS

Music lovers started arriving days before the festival, camping in the woods near Bethel and White Lake. Fortunately, the promoters, 2 weeks before the concert, had flown in 85 members of a New Mexico commune known as the Hog Farmers. Led by the charismatic but eccentric Hugh Romney, later christened Wavy Gravy by singing artist B. B. King, the Hog Farmers, distinguished by a red arm band adorned with an outline of a flying pig, became known as the “please force” and “mood establishers” (Figure 3). Impossible to ruffle, the Hog Farmers received much praise for their crowd management tactics. Many of the kids from New York City, who had shown up with limited camping skills and even less equipment, were generously taught by the Hog Farmers how to be comfortable in the woods. The Hog Farmers cleared hiking trails in the woods and anointed the paths with trendy names such as Groovy Way (Figure 4). They also cooked much of the food, principally large tubs of oatmeal garnished with whatever ingredients became available, to feed the concert-goers (Figure 5).

Figure 3.

Hugh Romney, the eccentric and charismatic leader of the Hog Farmers, was an effective spokesman and unofficial master of ceremonies at Woodstock. R&B singer B.B. King is given credit for nicknaming him Wavy Gravy. Photo: Lisa Law.

Figure 4.

The Hog Farmers cleared paths in the woods around Bethel and christened them with names reminiscent of the 1960s hippie culture. Photo: Baron Wolman.

Figure 5.

Members of the Hog Farmers Commune provided and cooked much of the food (vegetarian) at Woodstock. To their credit, despite the horrific sanitary conditions, there was minimal food-borne gastrointestinal illness. Photo: Lisa Law.

While the Hog Farmers and other well-chosen security people were keeping peace on the ground, helicopter surveillance a few days before the concert told an alarming story. The country roads leading to Bethel had morphed into miles-long parking lots (Figure 6). Updated crowd estimates predicted up to a half million. Dr. William Abruzzi, a local physician who had been hired to coordinate medical services, began to panic and “feared the possibility of the greatest medical tragedy of our times.” Also known as the Rock Doc, Abruzzi had gained notoriety for managing mass medicine at civil rights demonstrations and rock concerts. His initial plan involved hiring two physicians, four nurses, and three assistants, renting two ambulances, utilizing walkie-talkies, and stocking lots of mercurochrome. In overdrive, he rounded up 18 physicians ($320/shift), 36 nurses ($50/shift), 27 aides, and another ambulance from the Sullivan County Ambulance Service, augmented by one pick-up truck adorned with a mattress in the cargo bed.² Abruzzi tried to secure more ambulances, but officials at the local hospitals, already stretched thin by tourists visiting the nearby resorts, were wary of compromising their own county’s emergency health care needs. The point was moot, however, insofar as the impassibility of roads made ambulance support impossible (Figure 6). The perfect storm for a public health debacle was entrenched even before the real thunderstorms started that Friday night.

Figure 6.

In the days leading up the start of the music festival, the roads became impassable for miles. This was not just slow moving traffic; the roads had become parking lots. Photo: Ken Regan.

Abruzzi had arranged for small trailers and tents to serve as first aid stations, managed primarily by nurses (Figure 7). A huge mess tent with pink stripes, rented from a circus and christened Big Pink, was quickly given over to health care needs. The organizers had contracted with Abruzzi to staff the medical care stations starting Thursday morning, August 14, but the first patient and her boyfriend arrived at 8:00 am to find the trailer padlocked. Her complaint: “We’ve been ballin’ all night and I forgot my birth control pills.” Abruzzi was located working in his office, 90 minutes away in Wappingers Falls, NY.² In an after-action report to the New York Department of Health, C. B. Esselstyn, MD, noted sanitary napkins were in short supply at the “Folk Song Festival in Bethel.” This same report was appreciated for its tepid conclusion that Dr. Abruzzi had made “adequate” preparations for the anticipated 50,000 people.⁴

Figure 7.

Dr. Abruzzi, Woodstock’s medical director, rented trailers and tents to serve as first aid and medical stations. Nurses played an important role in managing the stations. Photo: Leslie Teicholz.

HELICOPTERS TO THE RESCUE

If helicopter reconnaissance alerted authorities that they had a problem, they concomitantly realized the helicopters were the solution. A staging area for helicopters was created at Grossinger’s Airport. Health care workers, band members, and patients could easily be transported to and from an area near the stage. Once he became aware of what was transpiring, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller asked for support from the 102nd Aviation Assault Helicopter Command. With its Hueys, the workhorse helicopter in Vietnam, this squadron, nearby on summer maneuvers, answered the call (Figure 8). The Aerospace Command in Colorado and the Pentagon approved the use of the army helicopters, and they immediately began to deliver food and medical supplies and do whatever was needed. The irony here is potent. The counterculture anti-Vietnam, anti-military, flower-power mindset crowd that predominated at Woodstock was now being bailed out by the very object of their countercultural sentiment. The 2019 movie Woodstock shows the Hueys flying over the crowd, an evocative and confusing juxtaposition. Am I in Vietnam or at a music festival espousing peace and love? In her 2019 New Yorker article, “Surviving Woodstock,” Hua Hsu was careful to point out, as have others, that the organizers on stage praised the military: “They’re with us, man—they are not against us.”⁵ Typical of Woodstock, there were no reported adverse interactions between army personnel and festival attendees.

Figure 8.

The presence of the Vietnam era Huey helicopters, from a nearby active-duty army squadron, created an ironic juxtaposition in the peace and love milieu of Woodstock. Due to the impassable roads, the helicopters were used to transport supplies, performers, health care personnel, and evacuate patients. Photo: Baron Wolman.

On Saturday, August 16, the medical director of the local Community General Hospitals, Dr. Sydney Schiff, critical of Abruzzi, set up a triage center at an elementary school in the nearby community of Monticello. This concept worked well, as helicopters delivered patients from the frontlines to a more stable and dry environment, where ambulances could maneuver.

DEATH, BIRTH, AND VIOLENCE

There were two documented deaths. The first casualty occurred Saturday morning at 10:30 am. The 17-year-old was in a sleeping bag when a tractor pulling the “honey dew” tank ran over him. Before he could be airlifted, he died on site of massive chest trauma. On Saturday night, an active-duty marine, with an upcoming departure for Vietnam, was on leave at his home on Long Island and came to Woodstock with his buddies. Detailed medical accounts are contradictory. He was initially described as comatose and alternatively as “screaming and just out of it.”² Hugh Romney, who first attended the victim, astutely and quickly recognized the severity of the situation and turned the patient over to the physicians. Heroin overdose was suspected but why is not clear. A temperature of 104°F was noted. The marine was transported to a hospital, where he died the next morning. An autopsy showed myocarditis. Malignant hyperthermia was postulated, although the reason he may have received chlorpromazine and the confusing time course leave questions. Autopsy records were sealed and toxicology reports were never released.

A fascination with Woodstock babies persists. Despite a handful of reports purporting a birth, to this day no one has been identified as a Woodstock baby. Esselstyn’s after-action report to the New York Department of Health mentioned that “two girls went into labor.”⁴ What is likely, based on the reports of ubiquitous uninhibited copulation, is that numerous babies were conceived at Woodstock. Thus, anyone with a birthday in mid May 1970 whose parents have credible proof of their attendance at Woodstock can claim their Woodstock roots, whatever the distinguishing merits of such provenance may be.

ILLNESS, INJURY, AND POP-TOPS

In the first aid logs, 3000 visits were recorded. Abruzzi listed foot blisters (172), foreign body in the foot (92), foot infection (77), injury of the foot (346), and lacerations of the foot (836).⁶ That total is 1523, meaning that over half of the medical visits were prompted by foot problems (Figure 9). The rain had turned the pasture into a muddy quagmire. Participants, many bare-footed or wearing flip-flops, sustained lacerations on rocks, broken glass, and pop-tops embedded in the mud. As a consequence, medical facilities and hospitals in the surrounding counties were depleted of tetanus shots. Though the field was not an active cow pasture, the victims’ wounds were exposed to manure-laden soil elsewhere on the farm. A neighbor of mine, listening to a 50th anniversary radio interview with one of the Woodstock participants, learned that the pasture hosting Woodstock had been fertilized with manure in the weeks prior to the concert, apparently at a time when its upcoming seminal role was still unrecognized. As for the pop-tops, Gittell raised the notion that Jimmy Buffet’s 1977 hit song, “Wasted Away Again in Margaritaville,” which contains the lines, “I blew out a flip-flop/stepped on a pop-top/Cut my heel, had to cruise on back home” was inspired by the numerous lacerations sustained when victims encountered pop-tops lurking in the mud. There is little evidence to support that origin, but Buffett did relate a story to his record producer Norbert Putnam regarding losing his flip-flop while coming home from a bar in Key West and did step on a pop-top, later inspiring him to pen “Margaritaville.”⁷

Figure 9.

Of about 3000 clinic visits recorded, just over half were related to foot injuries. Most victims were bare footed and stepped on stones, broken glass, and pop-tops embedded in the deep mud, which Gittell dubbed the “Fifth Element of the festival.” Photo: Baron Wolman.

The real story, though, was the total absence of any visits related to malice. In the after-action report, Abruzzi wrote:

And in closing, I leave you with the medical, political, psychological, and philosophical conclusion of this entire affair. At no time during the entire festival did any of the one hundred and fifty odd medical personnel who worked at the site treat any case, or see any incident, which involved the causing of personal or physical injury from one human being to another. Not a knife wound was sewed, not a punch wound was treated. This might very well have been an example of the first time that a large number of people have come together, lived together, suffered together, and given to the rest of us an indication that it can be done in love and peace. There was no fish or wine, but perhaps in that spirit, the bread went further, the water lasted longer. Christ would have smiled.⁶

Another report to the New York State Department of Health started by noting that “there was no disaster, no holocaust, catastrophe, riot, havoc, nightmare, or any major confrontation.”⁸

A most pungent fear was an outbreak of gastroenteritis. Close quarters, poor sanitation, lightly regulated food preparation, and mass food provision created conditions exquisitely vulnerable to contamination. The experienced Hog Farmers prepared and served much of the food. Augmented by some divine and benevolent Aquarian presence of the gods of public health, there were no gastrointestinal catastrophes. The patient tabulation for gastrointestinal complaints was as follows: diarrhea, primary (and only) (13); gastritis (90); gastroenteritis (86).⁶

SANITATION AND THE PORT-O-SAN MAN

If procuring a safe water supply was just one more pitfall that stood between an epidemic of gastrointestinal illness and musical enjoyment, an even more vexing problem was waste management. On site were 30 Johnny-On-the-Spot Big Units (5 urinals and 10 stalls) supplemented by 250 Port-O-San single units, totaling 550 seats to service 400,000 people. Rough industry estimates suggest one toilet per hundred people, meaning 4000 toilet seats would have been required to adequately serve Woodstock. The new Yankee Stadium, when full (52,325 fans), allots 1 toilet seat per 62 patrons. Woodstock tallied one seat per 833 music devotees. While the portable toilet shortage was real enough, what to do with the contents of a full portable toilet (capacity about 250 visits) was an even greater conundrum. Fortunately, before traffic became prohibitive, a sanitation truck had made it on site. Public health officials decided to unload the human waste into an 80-foot trench, 8 feet wide, at the edge of the farm, then chemically enriched for aroma management.

The portable toilet backdrop made for a most remarkable interview, captured in the 1970 Woodstock movie. The man tending the toilets was, in real life, Tom Taggart. In the aftermath of the movie, he was simply the Port-O-San Man. In a 2009 article, Michael Kramer described the 3-minute interview as “more haunting, more complicated, more evocative, than any famous musical performance in the film.”⁹ Taggart received pleasure in making the situation just a bit better. A cane he found left behind in a stall caused him dismay as he thought of the owner in need of it. He mentioned he had one son in Vietnam, flying helicopters for the US Army, and another son in the Woodstock crowd (Figure 10). Suddenly, the portable toilets were transformed into a cauldron where a polyverse stew of mud, manure, music, Vietnam, helicopters, human waste, and dignity bubbled away in a search for peace and enlightenment. The resulting reek was upwardly pervasive. Like Vietnam, you could not get away from it. Congressman McKneally, not pleased with what was transpiring in his district, flew over the crowd and noted “the stench will remain in the nostrils of Sullivan County residents for years.”²

Figure 10.

The Port-O-San man, Tom Taggart, on site at Woodstock to service the latrines, achieved somewhat of a cult status following the release of the 1970 film, Woodstock. Inspiring was his remarkable concern for others and cheery demeanor in the face of a miserable sanitation situation.

Writing in the New York Times on April 19, 1970, reporter Craig McGregor described Taggart as “the man who is the real schizophrenic hero of Woodstock, the Port-O-San man, who empties the latrines.”¹⁰ Taggart became the microcosm of Woodstock and everything it stood for. Every angle of the complicated alliance that evolved between the counterculture attendees and being rescued by the very institutions against which they were counterculturing could be gleaned from Taggart’s much chronicled dialogue.

OVERDOSES AND BAD TRIPS

While Jimi Hendrix’s song “Purple Haze” created much discussion as to meaning, there was no mistaking the vapor and scent of marijuana hovering over Woodstock. A 2019 article mentioned, “As the cliché goes, if you remember Woodstock, you weren’t there.”⁵ Wisely, law enforcement agencies had made a reasoned decision to ignore illicit drug possession. “A few volunteer nurses reported feeling ‘high’ just from breathing the air,” Gittell noted.² LSD accounted for the most overdoses (333), followed by speed (172). Of the 742 bad trips recorded, the Hog Farmers were able to talk down most of them. Traditional medical personnel treated 72 (9.7%) of these patients, 28 of whom received medication, either diazepam or chlorpromazine.⁶ The Hog Farmers’ approach was just TLC, reassurance, and recruitment of the patient’s friends, who usually accompanied the patient to the Trip Tent. Those friends were encouraged to implement this management technique that the Hog Farmers called the relay method: “Simple—minister to them rather than do your trip on them.”² The nurses and physicians developed an admiration for the care the Hog Farmers provided and noted they had a superior sense of when to relinquish the patient to professional medical intervention.

WHY DISASTER NEVER TOOK THE STAGE

Despite Abruzzi’s fear that “the greatest medical tragedy of our times” was about to transpire on his watch, the public health apocalypse did not come to pass. Gittell offered three reasons for the relative medical benignity of the festival weekend: (1) sheer good fortune; (2) dedicated and selfless effort by both the paid staff and the countless volunteers who pitched in to help out; and (3) the very good vibes and unique overflowing of good feelings. The positive “please force” spirit of the Hog Farmers cannot be overstated as a contributing factor. Their practical contributions in terms of cooking food, managing the bad trips, and just helping out everyone, in addition to the kindness with which they infectiously infused the festival, were exceptional. The nurses and physicians who volunteered, many of whom came to the concert as spectators or were just vacationing in the area, gave of themselves, manifesting the highest ideals of selflessness and duty. Locals emptied their refrigerators of food, opened up their houses, and did what they could for the “hippies.” A network of small motorcycles was organized that could navigate the packed roads, retrieving and delivering whatever was needed, such as the hundreds of tetanus shots acquired from the surrounding hospitals. Engineers and inspectors from the State Health Department did their part. The US Army stepped forward as requested by the governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller.

LUNAR CONNECTIONS, WOODSTOCK, AND AQUARIUS

In 1958, congressional legislation mandated that exploration of space would be for peaceful purposes. Before departing the lunar surface, Apollo 11 astronauts left in the moon dust a plaque that stated, “Here men from the planet earth first set foot upon the moon. July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind” (Figure 11). The moon, long the muse and province of poets, had now become an officially anointed purveyor of global peace. Fifty years later, the moon and Woodstock perpetuated their mystical union. In retrospect, perhaps the moon really was in the seventh hour and truly was the commencement of the benevolent Age of Aquarius. Just a few months after Woodstock, the lunar module for Apollo 13 was named “Aquarius.”

Figure 11.

The Apollo 11 mission, advocating a similar theme of peace as the Woodstock Musical Festival, happened within a month after the man first landed on the moon. These events occurred in the context of a vague notion of goodness known as the Age of Aquarius. A few months later, the Apollo 13 lunar rover was named Aquarius.