More details have emerged about the tragic incident that unfolded at the Astroworld music festival, leaving eight people dead and hundreds injured.
As we previously reported, with approximately 50,000 people in attendance, Houston Fire Chief Sam Peña described the scene as a “mass casualty incident” triggered when the crowd began “to compress toward the front of the stage” after 9 pm. This then sparked panic amongst concertgoers and caused some injuries:
“People began to fall out and become unconscious, and that created additional panic. People were getting injured.”
Following the situation, videos and personal accounts have flooded social media showing and describing the chaos of what happened that day — as well as the attempts to stop Travis Scott‘s performance in order to allow those injured to receive the medical attention they required.
One video posted on Twitter showed a girl allegedly begging the camera operators to stop the show. In a different post, people in the crowd could then be heard screaming “stop the show” as the 29-year-old rapper continued performing on stage. It’s unclear whether he could hear the pleas or not. Take a look (below):
Videos also have shown the musician witnessing at least one unconscious fan being carried out by a group of security. Meanwhile, another clip saw him briefly stopping the concert again to grab medics for a fan. But that’s not all. According to The New York Post, Scott also noticed an ambulance moving through the crowd at one point and stopped performing for a couple of minutes before saying he’s going to “make this motherf**king ground shake” and continuing. He also sent two members of his entourage diving off stage to crowd surf. What the actual f**k?!
And what’s even worse is that footage posted on social media has also witnessed fans blocking and dancing on the emergency vehicle while it made its way to help the unconscious victims. Disgusting.
In a lengthy Instagram post, an attendee named Seanna detailed how people were jam-packed into the area — so much so that festival-goers struggled to breath:
“Within the first 30 seconds of the first song, people began to drown — in other people… The rush of people became tighter and tighter. Breathing became something only a few were capable of. The rest were crushed or unable to breathe in the thick hot air.”
She claimed her friend started to “gasp for breath” at one point and attempted to leave
“The shoving got harder and harder… People began to choke one another as the mass swayed. It became more and more violent. We began to scream for help.”
Seanna said others around her also started yelling as they struggled to breathe before some started collapsing:
“We begged security to help us, for the performer to see us and know something was wrong. None of that came. We continued to drown… Once one fell, a hole opened in the ground. It was like watching a Jenga Tower topple. Person after person were sucked down.”
She eventually managed to reach the filming platform and alerted the camera crew that people were dying, but someone “told me to get off the platform, and continued filming.” Just awful. Another fan, Cody Hartt, wrote on Twitter that he also repeatedly tried telling security to end the show due to the emergencies happening but had also been ignored:
“I screamed for help so many times, alerted security, asked everyone in the crowd if there was anyone who was CPR certified. Every call went unanswered. I was told, ‘we already know, and we can’t do anything to stop the show, they’re streaming live.’ Disgusting.”
There are bound to be more accounts that come out in the wake of this tragedy. But the more we learn about what happened, the more it becomes clear that some serious changes need to be made so that this never happens again.
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