Dozens injured at Falls Festival in Victoria, Australia

Falls Festival. Photo / Falls Festival / Facebook

At least 19 people have been taken to hospital with serious injuries following a crowd crush incident at the Falls Music and Arts Festival at Lorne in Victoria, Australia.

Police say a large number of people were injured after those at the front of a crowd leaving a performance lost their footing at about 9.50pm on Friday.

Ambulance Victoria state health commander Paul Holman said paramedics and ambulances were on site, and worked with first aid providers to triage and assess more than 60 people injured in the crush.

"We transported 13 women and six men to hospital, mostly with lower limb fractures.

"Injuries included leg, rib, hip and pelvic fractures, possible spinal injuries, head and facial injuries, cuts and abrasions. Patients' ages ranged from late teens to late 20s," Holman said in a statement.

There has been an incident, just before 11pm tonight at the Lorne leg involving a crowd exit after the DMA’s set in the...

Posted by Falls Music and Arts Festival on Friday, 30 December 2016

"It was quite a chaotic scene and required a major response. "While the injuries are significant, this could have been quite a tragedy and we are grateful that the outcome was not worse."

Festival organisers posted an official note on Facebook confirming the crowd crush incident just after Australian band DMA's had finished playing in the Grand Theatre tent.

Eyewitness accounts reported the crush as a "stampede" with bones broken, shoes torn off and mobile phones crushed.

Adam Dean, of Ringwood, was in the crowd and told Fairfax Media one of his friends was injured.

"After DMA's there was a huge rush of people coming out and he got trampled, everyone was pushing people out - it was bad." Mr Dean said his friend was "all right, legs got scratched up massively, reckons he basically got dragged like 10 metres over gravel from everyone trampling him. But he's all good."

Festival-goer Lucy Spry posted on the Falls Facebook site that it began when someone slipped on gravel going through a small exit with no crowd control in sight.

"Once they went down, they didn't get up quick enough, so we all started piling on top of them as the crowd just did not stop pushing.

"They couldn't see what was going on or hear us all absolutely screaming to stop pushing, so it ended up in hundreds of kids getting absolutely crushed!"

Festival organisers have set up an account for anyone with inquiries about the incident or the welfare of specific festival-goers.

- Orginally published by news.com.au