As chaos surged through the deadly mayhem of the crowd at Houston’s Astroworld Festival in November, rapper Travis Scott continued to perform — 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 Scott’s 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.
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. #ASTROWORLDFest
— Cody Hartt (@CodyHartt) November 6, 2021
Another video of the crowd chanting “Stop The Show”… what more could they have done to get someone’s attention??? pic.twitter.com/6n5d6qrJE1
— damn (@DexterL07617514) November 6, 2021
“Fans were recording the concert, and people doing CPR,” said Madeline Eskins, an ICU nurse who was at the show, according to Rolling Stone.
“Fans were yelling at the stage crew around us, saying stop the concert, people are dying. No one listened,” she said.
Eskins said trouble had been brewing long before it peaked at the time of Scott’s show.
“It was definitely overcrowded. It was insane, honestly. I knew it was just way too crowded — it just got worse and worse as it got closer to Travis Scott performing it got more crowded, more crowded, more crowded,” she said.
Eskins said she was caught in the crowd surge.
“I 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,” Eskins said. “I tried to jump up as much as I could to get air. I couldn’t breathe. I just felt it. I knew it was coming.”
Eskins said Scott could have made a difference.
“If he would’ve stopped the concert or paused it, people would have settled down, and the situation could have been assessed a lot better,” Eskins said. “If he could see someone was passed out, he could’ve seen something should’ve been done. This started from the very beginning of the concert. So it went from about 9 pm, that’s when I passed out. And went on till about 10:15, 10:30.”
“They’re trying to blame drugs. And I will level with you, I don’t think this was caused by drug use,” Eskins said. “Could 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 [are] 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.”
Concert-goer Grant Tate, 20, of Scottsdale, Arizona, was among those who pleaded with concert staff to stop, Rolling Stone reported.
“I was telling the crane crew, ‘There are people on the ground. They need help.’ They didn’t have any communication with the EMTs or security. They couldn’t help,” Tate recounted. “There was just no preparation for them to have an emergency scenario like that.”
“People were yelling, ‘Stop the show!’ But a lot of people were yelling lot of things. I’m sure it was hard for [Scott] to understand,” he said. “If there was any communication between that middle camera area and [stage staff], he might have understood — and maybe stopped the show.”
Houston Chief of Police Troy Finner said there were accounts of individuals being injected with something, according to the Daily Mail.
“One 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,” he said.
“He 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,” Finner said.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
