“At one point my ribs were getting into the railing, basically impaled, and I was fearing for my life that I wasn’t gonna make it,” Espinoza said. A security guard helped him jump the gate, and there were “hundreds of bodies on the floor already from people passing out, falling over the railing,” he said.
Eligio Garcia, 18, and his girlfriend were caught up in a “whirlpool” of people at the start of Scott’s set, he recalled.
“Just kids and people falling and people trying to reach up, like they’re reaching up for you,” he said. “I really heard people screaming like, ‘Help, please help me.'”
Garcia and his girlfriend were knocked over, and others fell on top of them, he said. Eventually they managed to get upright in the scrum, he said, and cries for help throughout the crowd to staff or show officials at the end of each song went unanswered before another began.
“It’s a whole nightmare that just continues to play every night in my head,” he said.
Also in the scrum were Ayden Cruz and his friend Brianna Rodriguez, who died. They were around a “circle of people who had fallen behind us” and were next to stumble, Cruz told CNN.
“The ripple effects of the crowds going forward and backward, we were pushed onto our backs, and as that happened, people began to fall on top of us and cause it to be harder to get air and just so much weight on both of us,” he said, adding another friend “fell as well on his back and people on top of us. It was really scary.”
Houston Police Chief Troy Finner is due to hold a news briefing on the disaster Wednesday at 4:30 ET, police said via Twitter.
Communications gaps impacted immediate response
“We’re looking at the roles that everyone played, what missteps, failures, gaps that may have existed,” Turner said, adding they aren’t ruling anything out.
Firefighters stationed outside the Astroworld venue were not in radio communication with the emergency medical providers hired by the concert organizers, Peña told CNN on Tuesday.
Houston Fire officials on standby near the venue had asked concert organizers for a radio to communicate with the emergency medical provider company but were only provided with cell phone numbers, according to the president of the city’s firefighter union.
Concert attendees couldn’t text or call due to poor cell service, some have said.
After learning of the crush, the fire department sent its resources into the crowd, saying eventually 12 “very critical” victims were transported, in many cases with CPR in progress.
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo is considering an outside law firm or other third party for the independent investigation into the tragedy, according to her spokesperson.
Mourning those killed and recalling the horror
“She was a really sweet girl, and it’s just really sad what happened to her,” Caitlin Barrera told CNN on Tuesday. “This is the last thing that you would think would happen.”
Rusty Barber, who did not know the victims yet wanted to pay his respects, shared his frustration with how Friday’s concert turned to tragedy and Scott’s set continued during the surge.
“It could have been stopped. They could have taken a 10-minute pause, 15-minute pause, and then they could have got it situated. And then the show could have went on and all these people wouldn’t have lost their lives,” Barber told CNN.
The performers should have stopped the show that night, said Henry, the lawyer who said he’s lodged dozens of suits.
“At 9:38 there was a mass casualty incident report to all the producers at the show,” he told CNN. “By 10:15, the show had ended. But in that period of time, Drake came on stage while people were being injured and killed. Those performers — Drake and Travis Scott, along with all of the event organizers — knew the dangers associated with the crowd, what was going on with the crowd, and yet they continued to perform.
“And from the stage, you could see absolutely Travis Scott noticing people being injured, noticing people being carried off unconscious,” Henry said. “And so those performers, instead of stopping the show and keeping those people safe in the crowd and taking those steps necessary to stop the event — help stop this crowd issue — they continued and the crowd was excited, the crowd got worse and more people got injured because they continued to perform.”
CNN’s Rosa Flores, Victor Blackwell, Gustavo Valdés, Amir Vera, Kay Jones, Jennifer Henderson, Claudia Dominguez, Raja Razek, Jorge Venegas, Corey James and Alysha Martin contributed to this report.
Source : Nbcnewyork
