A participant at a six-day retreat where people ingested hallucinogenic plants and frog toxins was warned never to speak of witnessing the prolonged and agonising death of a fellow attender, an inquest has heard.
Jarrad Antonovich died on 16 October 2021, while attending the Dreaming Arts festival at Arcoora, near Kyogle, in northern New South Wales.
An inquest in Lismore has heard Antonovich died of a tear in his oesophagus from the vomiting caused by his consumption of ayahuasca – made from Amazonian plants – and “kambo” frog toxins administered by self-styled shamanic “medicine men” and women.
The inquest has also heard that it was suggested to paramedics who attended the scene that Antonovich suffered a fatal asthma attack.
Bella Gardner, a self-described international socialite, was among those who paid hundreds of dollars to attend the Dreaming Arts festival. She told the inquest she saw Antonovich at about 11am on the day of his death, after appearing to have participated in a kambo ceremony.
Gardner was alarmed to see Antonovich’s neck swollen to his jawline, she told the inquest on Wednesday.
“I did not know if his head was going to explode or not from how swollen his neck was,” she said.
“I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
Gardner had first-hand experience of so-called “frog face”, in which the kambo toxins cause swelling to the face after it is absorbed into the skin when applied to shallow burns.
But his condition appeared dangerous, she told the inquest, although she believed it was not her place to intervene.
Earlier in the festival, as both were vomiting violently after ingesting ayahuasca, Antonovich had offered her a small blessing to give her courage to get through that “terrible” night, she told the inquest.
She said Antonovich had subsequently been “yelled at” by the shaman who was running the retreat, Lore Solaris, and a member of his “inner circle”, his assistant Pedro Cruz Rodriguez.
“Participants are not allowed to interfere with anyone’s journey,” she told the inquest. “That’s one of the protocols in the ceremonies.”
People like Gardner, who had spent thousands of dollars on more than a dozen kambo, ayahuasca and peyote ceremonies in the months leading up to the fatal Kyogle festival, were trained to “trust the medicine, trust the process” and trust the shamans who administered it, the inquest heard.
“We put our lives in their hands,” Gardner said.
Yet even before she saw Antonovich later that afternoon still struggling and moaning, she said she “was wondering how long this would go for”.
She told the inquest that she saw Antonovich being carried into an ayahuasca and music ceremony that evening and laid prone on to a mat, where someone attempted CPR on him while Solaris sang and played guitar.
An ambulance was called just after 11.30pm, and paramedics who arrived an hour later found Antonovich blue in the face and dead, the inquest heard.
Later, when Gardner told Rodriguez she believed Antonovich died as a result of the “medicine” he had consumed at Dreaming Arts, he told her never to speak of the day again, the inquest heard.
The court also heard on Wednesday from another who had enquired about the details that led to Antonovich’s death.
The events leading up to the death was also questioned by Patrick Santucci, who had been in a five-year, intimate relationship with Antonovich and who later reached out to Solaris.
Santucci told the inquest that, having asked Solaris what an autopsy on his friend’s body might reveal, he recalled him saying: “Oh it’s just plants, they won’t find anything.”
Solaris, a self-described spiritual guide and healer, repeatedly said that Antonovich’s last moments were “beautiful”, Santucci told the inquest.
“‘He was with people that loved him’, Lore said, and ‘the koalas were making a special sound known to the Elders when the land accepts a spirit’,” Santucci told the inquest.
Santucci said he heard a similar story repeated to him at Arcoora, when he went to retrieve Antonovich’s car. This time, though, Santucci had had enough.
“He had a lot to live for,” Santucci told the inquest.
“Don’t give me this story about how beautiful his passing was.”
The inquest continues.
