By Deb Gruver

Staff Writer

A fight between friends while camping at Hillsboro Cove at Marion Reservoir led to three people requiring medical care, including a 56-year-old person who was rushed to a Wichita hospital with potentially life-threatening stab wounds.

Illegal substances may have been involved, Undersheriff Larry Starkey said.

Dispatchers received a call just before 10:30 p.m. Friday about someone who was having trouble breathing or was in and out of consciousness.

Hillsboro ambulance arrived, and emergency responders took the man to Wesley Medical Center. A paramedic from Marion ambulance assisted during the trip.

“Deputies had already started out that way also,” Starkey said. “One person had been stabbed, and two other people had been beaten up. Several people were already gone or took off as deputies were getting there.”

Starkey arrived later.

“I think I got home around 5 a.m. the next morning,” he said.

The sheriff’s office still is investigating and has not yet arrested anyone.

The group appeared to have been friends.

“At some point they were,” Starkey said, “maybe not so much now.”

The two people who were beaten up — one suffered a severe black eye and another suffered abrasions — were gone by the time emergency responders arrived.

“They turned up at St. Luke Hospital later on,” Starkey said.

They were treated and released, he said, for wounds that were “nothing too serious.”

Starkey said he thought the man who was stabbed remained in the hospital Tuesday.

“It was pretty serious,” he said.

Sheriff’s officers haven’t interviewed him yet.

“We don’t know who stabbed him,” Starkey said. “I think we’ll give him a couple days because he had pretty significant injuries. He was stabbed more than once.”

Deputies didn’t find a weapon at the campground.