As chaos surged through the deadly mayhem of the crowd at Houstonās Astroworld Festival in November, rapper Travis Scott continued to perform ā even as fans begged for the show to be stopped.
Eight people died on Nov. 5, and more than 25 were hospitalized in the incident. What was clear to the fans as Scottās show took place was that people needed help, according to the Daily Mail.
Multiple videos that circulated on social media show people in the crowd begging for the show to stop.
āFans were recording the concert, and people doing CPR,ā said Madeline Eskins, an ICU nurse who was at the show, according to Rolling Stone.
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āFans were yelling at the stage crew around us, saying stop the concert, people are dying. No one listened,ā she said.
Eskins said trouble had been brewing long before it peaked at the time of Scottās show.
āIt was definitely overcrowded. It was insane, honestly. I knew it was just way too crowded ā it just got worse and worse as it got closer to Travis Scott performing it got more crowded, more crowded, more crowded,ā she said.
Eskins said she was caught in the crowd surge.
āI looked at my boyfriend, and I was about to tell my boyfriend to tell my son I loved him because I did not think I would make it out of there. And I fainted,ā Eskins said. āI tried to jump up as much as I could to get air. I couldnāt breathe. I just felt it. I knew it was coming.ā
Eskins said Scott could have made a difference.
āIf he wouldāve stopped the concert or paused it, people would have settled down, and the situation could have been assessed a lot better,ā Eskins said. āIf he could see someone was passed out, he couldāve seen something shouldāve been done. This started from the very beginning of the concert. So it went from about 9 pm, thatās when I passed out. And went on till about 10:15, 10:30.ā
āTheyāre trying to blame drugs. And I will level with you, I donāt think this was caused by drug use,ā Eskins said. āCould it have been a contributing factor? Sure. Will they find drugs in the bodies of those passed away? Maybe. But people were getting suffocated. People were getting trampled. A lot of these trauma-based injuries. One dude had his face smashed in. He was bleeding from his nose, face and mouth. Which I guess drugs can cause, but so can getting trampled.ā
Concert-goer Grant Tate, 20, of Scottsdale, Arizona, was among those who pleaded with concert staff to stop, Rolling Stone reported.
āI was telling the crane crew, āThere are people on the ground. They need help.ā They didnāt have any communication with the EMTs or security. They couldnāt help,ā Tate recounted. āThere was just no preparation for them to have an emergency scenario like that.ā
āPeople were yelling, āStop the show!ā But a lot of people were yelling lot of things. Iām sure it was hard for to understand,ā he said. āIf there was any communication between that middle camera area and , he might have understood ā and maybe stopped the show.ā
Houston Chief of Police Troy Finner said there were accounts of individuals being injected with something, according to the Daily Mail.
āOne of the narratives was that some individual was injecting other people with drugs. We do have a report of a security officer, according to the medical staff that was out and treated him last night,ā he said.
āHe was reaching over to restrain or grab a citizen, and he felt a prick in his neck. He went unconscious, they administered Narcan. He was revived, and medical staff did notice a prick similar to a prick you would get if somebody was trying to inject,ā Finner said.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
