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BY STEVE ZABROSKI
Times Correspondent | Monday, July 24, 2006 | (No comments posted.)
HAMMOND | Unusual measures by police and emergency room personnel got the headlining band Live on stage for its show Saturday night at the Festival of the Lakes.
Local favorites the Crawpuppies were just launching into their opening set at 7 p.m. when Live's road manager approached festival organizers with the news that frontman Ed Kowalczyk couldn't sing, and the show was off.
More than 10,000 music fans were already crowding into Wolf Lake Memorial Park, with more pouring in by the minute.
"A lot of people wondered what we were going to do," said Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr.
A quick call to St. Margaret Mercy Healthcare Centers alerted emergency room staff to an incoming celebrity, and Police Sgt. Pat Vicari and Cpl. Robert Taylor were dispatched to transport the ailing rocker from his hotel to the hospital.
While Crawpuppies fans got an unexpected extra hour of their band, Kowalczyk got a couple steroid shots and his band got a police escort to the festival main stage, where the crowd was now topping 15,000.
"It was a little scary for a while," Police Chief Brian Miller said. "We're just glad we were able to do it."
St. Margaret personnel bent over backward to help, McDermott said.
"Now it's 8:15, and they had a doctor and nurses waiting," he said. "The ER staff kicked butt -- they had him in and out in 45 minutes."
Helping the Live singer get his voice back was a special thrill for nurse Debbie Walsh, of Merrillville, in charge of the emergency room on Saturday night.
"Live is one of my all-time favorite bands," Walsh said, "I've loved that band forever."
After her shift ended at 10:30 p.m., she and a fellow nurse drove to the festival and were ushered up to the VIP area, as promised by McDermott, where Kowalczyk pulled her out of the crowd to dance with him onstage.
"It was such a thrill," Walsh said. "Ed autographed my scrubs. It was one of the coolest experiences I've ever had."
Overall, this has been the most law-abiding five-day festival yet, said Miller, with only three arrests -- two for disorderly conduct and one man caught breaking into a parked car -- as of Sunday afternoon.
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