Travis Scott concert survivor blasts ‘feral’ revelers who trampled the injured ‘like wild animals’

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Survivors of the deadly Travis Scott concert crush say others in the crowd were ‘feral’ and trampled victims, with one man even claiming one of the dead died in his arms.  

Selena Beltran says she was ‘shocked to see people act so inconsiderate and feral’ at Astroworld Fest on Friday, where eight people died and at least 27 were injured following a fatal stampede.

She struggled to breathe as the crowd tightened while rapper Travis Scott approached the stage in Houston. 

‘I fell backwards and it felt like it was the end for me. To think that’s how I’ll die, I was so scared,’ Beltran told CNN. ‘I did not know what to do. It was all happening so fast, but so slow and I couldn’t react. I just screamed.’

She witnessed people trampling over unconscious people on the ground. 

‘I was shocked to see people act so inconsiderate and feral. It was insane to see so many just run others over like wild animals,’ she said. 

‘People did not care, they still tried to squeeze through just to get to the front without thinking of the consequences and who it would affect.’

Someone pulled her up and she tried to perform CPR on people who had fainted with a nurse she met in the crowd.  

‘I was beginning to go into shock, although I was trying to keep my composure and not panic. It was terrifying. I felt like it was a nightmare,’ she said.

‘I looked around and just saw people stare and others continuing to enjoy themselves as if these people meant nothing. It felt like there was little humanity in that crowd.’

She says she saw the bodies of people she had performed CPR on being carried away by medics.

‘I knew they had passed away,’ she said. ‘I could not sleep last night. The moment kept replaying in my mind over and over again.’

Concertgoers have described similar scenes of being unable to breathe and calling out for help as Scott reportedly performed for over half an hour after first responders had been called over to the mass casualty event.

Concertgoer Billy Nasser called the show a ‘death trap.’

‘I picked some kid up and his eyes rolled to the back of his head, so I checked his pulse. I knew he was dead,’ Nasser, who works as a DJ, told CNN. ‘I checked the people around me. And I just had to leave him there, there was nothing I could do. I had to keep going.

‘Kids were dropping left and right,’ he said, adding that his attempts to tell concert workers to stop the show fell on deaf ears.

‘There wasn’t enough security guards and there wasn’t enough EMTs and people helping out the crowd. The paramedics couldn’t even reach the crowd,’ Nasser said.

Madeline Eskins, an ICU nurse who attended the show and later posted a harrowing account of the scene backstage and behind the crowd as untrained staff tried to revive attendees, described the moments that led to the stage rush.

‘He started a countdown about 30 minutes before he performed – he started a timer on the big screen,’ she said.

‘And all of a sudden, people compressed up against each other and were pushing forward and backward. As the timer got closer to coming down to zero, it just – it got worse and worse.’

‘It happens, people rush the stage, no big deal,’ Eskins said. ‘It’s uncomfortable, some get hurt, but this was way overcrowded. I’ve never seen anything like it. I felt like I was going to die.’

‘I’ve been to concerts and, yes, it gets tight, but I’ve never felt like I was going to pass out,’ she said. ‘I never saw people collapsing. I definitely never saw anybody die.’ 

TK Tellez, 20, told CNN that the crowd began compressing about an hour before Scott hit the stage, getting worse when he actually appeared.   

‘The crowd became tighter and tighter, and at that point it was hard to breathe. When Travis came out performing his first song, I witnessed people passing out next to me,’ Tellez told CNN.

‘We were all screaming for help, and no one helped or heard us. It was horrifying. People were screaming for their lives, and they couldn’t get out. Nobody could move a muscle.

People around him began to fall, which caused him to fall, and people also packed on top of him, some of them unconscious. 

‘Everybody was crying; it was the scariest sound I’ve ever heard,’ Tellez said. ‘Imagine listening to Travis Scott and people screaming for their lives at the same time.’

He said there ‘was just not enough people to help everyone 

‘Travis Scott would have a short time in between songs, and we would scream our vocal chords out so someone could hear us but nobody did.

‘This year’s festival will be stuck with me forever. I’ve never seen someone die in front of my eyes. It was horrific.’

Journalist Joey Guerra, who has covered the music scene in Houston for about 10 years, according to CNN, said things were normal throughout the day until Scott got ready to come out that night.

He also added that Scott stopped to take stock of the situation in the audience multiple times.

‘You see things like that a lot, people being carried out because of exhaustion or dehydration or things like that,’ Guerra told CNN. 

‘He did stop the show, I want to say, three or four times when he noticed people in distress.’

Echoing Eskins’ recollection, Jeffrey Schmidt says things got worse when the 30-minute countdown for Scott’s set began and breathing got harder and harder for him. He was at the show with his best friend Casey Wagner.

‘Me and Casey decided to try our best to make our way out of the crowd slowly. Little did we know, all hell was about to break loose. People started to pass out and fall to the ground,’ Schmidt told CNN.

‘Casey, I and other crowd members tried to hold back the crowd from trampling over them. But the force of the crowd was too powerful, and people started to topple on top of the them including Casey and I.’

The two friends found themselves became separated and were trampled under other bodies. Schmidt’s legs got stuck under other attendees.

‘At that moment my mind went into full survival mode. All I could hear was people screaming and crying for help,’ Schmidt said. ‘I lost all hope and thought I was going to die right there because I could not get my legs out. I fought for my life.

‘I thought I was never going to see my best friend again, life did not feel real,’ he said.

The friends later reunited and survived, with Schmidt calling the night a ‘fight for survival.’

He added: ‘I witnessed multiple people unconscious and unable to breathe, as people under me were crying for my help. But I physically could not help. That is what traumatized me the most, that I could not help the people around me. I felt heartbroken for them and their families.’

On Saturday, Travis Scott shared his shock after eight people were crushed to death at his Houston concert on Friday – but the rapper has twice been convicted for encouraging fans to jump security barriers and rush the stage at previous concerts. 

Scott, born Jacques Bermon Webster II, posted an emotional video saying he was ‘devastated’ about the deaths at Houston’s Astroworld Fest on his Instagram.

He added: ‘I can’t imagine anything like this happening.’

But that has raised eyebrows over footage showing multiple incidents of crowds stampeding towards Scott at prior performances at Lollapalooza in Chicago in 2015 and at an outdoor venue in Arkansas in 2017. Both incidents resulted in misdemeanor convictions for Scott. 

There’s no suggestion Scott asked fans to rush his stage during the Friday night performance that ended with eight deaths.

One nurse who was in attendance has rubbished claims that a man was seen injecting people with a needle moments before the crush.

A statement issued on Astroworld’s account also mentioned people suffering from cardiac arrests and asked anyone with knowledge to contact Houston PD, sparking claims that organizers are trying to pass the buck over alleged poor crowd control that turned deadly.  

Houston PD Chief Troy Finner said there had been reports of a security guard stabbed with a needle and later being revived with Narcan, although there have been no reports of the crowd being drugged in the same way. 

Meanwhile, a fan who was paralyzed after falling from a balcony during a Scott concert in 2017 has blasted the singer for putting fans’ safety at risk. 

A lawyer for Kyle Green, a 27-year-old who was injured at Scott’s April 2017 concert at Terminal 5 in New York City, says that Green was ‘devastated and heartbroken’ for the families of the eight people who died at Scott’s Friday night concert. 

Green says he was forced over the edge of a balcony at the venue, which he called ‘severely crowded.’ He broke several bones and vertebrae and can only walk with a ‘significant, significant disability.’

In a statement to DailyMail.com, Green’s attorney Howard Hershenhorn said that Scott’s security picked Green up ‘like a sack of potatoes’ instead of ‘putting him in a neck brace and on the backboard.’

‘He’s even more incensed by the fact that it could have been avoided had Travis learned his lesson in the past and changed his attitude about inciting people to behave in such a reckless manner,’ Hershenhorn told Rolling Stone. 

At the 2017 show, Scott had encouraged another fan to jump off the balcony. 

‘I see you, but are you gonna do it?’ Scott asked. ‘They gonna catch you. Don’t be scared. Don’t be scared!’ 

In video of the incident, one fan can be heard saying, ‘I don’t wanna die in here.’ 

Green sued Scott, his manager, concert promoter Bowery Presents and a security company six months after the incident while he was still confined to a wheelchair. The case is pending.

In August 2015, the 29-year-old, who is dating Kylie Jenner, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of reckless conduct after his fans jumped a security barricade at the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago.

The Office of Emergency Management said at the time: ‘The performer played one song and then began telling fans to come over the barricades. Due to the security’s quick response, the situation was remedied immediately and no fans were injured.

The performer fled the scene but was arrested shortly after, according to station WLS.

‘All my real ragers jump the barricade right now. Let’s go. Come over,’ he said at the 2015 show as his young fans obliged. ‘I want chaos.’ Hundreds were seen storming towards the stage, although there were no reports of anyone being injured.  

In February 2018, he pled guilty to another misdemeanor charge – this one for disorderly conduct – after he encouraged his fans to rush the stage and bypass security at a May 2017 concert at the Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion in the city of Rogers. 

Scott paid a 7,465.31 fine, according to KFSM. 

The Rogers Police Department said several people were injured during the rush and  treated on the scene by the fire department and staff from a local hospital.

Weeks before that, a fan at a Scott concert in Manhattan says he was carried over the side of a balcony after the rapper asked fans to rush forward, and was subsequently paralyzed as a result.  

Meanwhile, a nurse who fainted and was crowd-surfed to the stage at Friday’s concert described the scene as overwhelmed medical staff dealt with a sea of bodies. She also pushed back on claims that a man stabbing people with a needle was the source of the eight deaths.

‘This is a lie. They trying to cover their asses. Nobody who actually was there has said this s**t. Nobody saw this s**t,’ said Madeline Eskins.

A crowd management expert told KHOU that standing-room-only setups with no seats or aisles are the most dangerous ways to organize audiences.

‘From Elvis Presley on, everybody ha known this is problematic,’ said Paul Wertheimer, founder of Crowd Management Strategies.

‘It forces people in the crowd to work against each other,’ he said. ‘This is the worst thing that can happen in crowd safety.’

Friday was the first night of the two-day Astroworld festival, which was inaugurated by Scott in 2018 to promote his critically acclaimed album of the same name.

The lineup included Scott along with artists such as SZA, Bad Bunny, Tame Impala, Earth Wind & Fire, Toro y Moi and Roddy Rich.

SZA, an R&B singer who had performed hours before Scott took the stage, responded to the tragedy on Twitter Saturday: ‘Speechless about last night I’m actually in shock n don’t even know what to say. Just praying for everyone in Houston especially the families of those that lost their lives.’ 

Video published Sunday by TMZ shows a woman’s head violently hitting the floor after multiple police officers pulled the unconscious woman, who was lying on a stretcher, out of the crowd feet-first, with no one to support the other side of her body as it fell from the barricade.

Eight people, ranging in age from 14 to 27, were killed as people pushed against one another while trying to get as close as possible to the Grammy-winning performer. 

John Hilgert is the youngest victim of the horrific crush, which killed eight people at Friday night’s Astroworld Festival in Houston. 

He was a ninth grader at Memorial High School and was remembered as a talented baseball player and a popular student.

Hilgert was pictured as Houston’s medical examiner released a photograph of another victim they’re trying to identify, KTRK reported. 

The man is believed to be in his early 20s, has short dark hair, a goatee and was wearing white size 11 Nikes. He was six feet two inches tall and weighed 498 pounds.

Danish Baig, 27, was one of the people who died after a surge at the concert. University of Dayton student Franco Patino, 21, a senior, also died at day one of the Astroworld festival at NRG Park in Houston, Texas, the school said. 

Baig was killed after trying to save a relative during the stampede at the concert, his brother Basil Baig confirmed on Facebook. 

‘My brother was killed in this horrendous Astroworld event that was managed poorly and supervised by such horrible people,’ Basil wrote on Facebook. 

He commended his late brother for his ‘courageous act’ and called him a ‘beautiful soul.’ 

Patino was a huge fan of the rapper and travelled from Southern Ohio to Houston for the event with his best friend to celebrate his friend’s birthday, according to WGN9. 

The college senior was studying engineering and was a member of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and the Alpha Psi Lambda. 

Scott responded to the incident in a video on his Instagram stories on Saturday.

‘My fans really mean the world to me and I always want to leave them with a positive experience,’ Scott said.

‘Anytime I can make out anything that’s going on, ya know, I stop the show and you know, help them get the help they need. I could just never imagine the severity of the situation.’

The crowd at the Houston-based music festival surged toward the stage during Scott’s performance, knocking other concertgoers over and squeezing them together so tightly that they could not breathe or move their arms.

‘To the ones that was lost last night, we’re working right now to ID the families so we can help assist them through this tough time,’ the rapper shared.

‘I’m honestly just devastated… I could never imagine anything like this just happening.’

Scott said he is working closely with local authorities as they investigate the crowd surge and encouraged anyone with information about the deadly incident.

His pregnant girlfriend Kylie Jenner, who was at the show with her model sister Kendall, put out her own statement after the ill-fated concert. 

‘I want to make it clear we weren’t aware of any fatalities until the news came out after the show and in no world would have continued filming or performing.

‘I am sending my deepest condolences to all the families during this difficult time and will be praying for the healing of everyone who has been impacted.’

‘Everyone is shocked and upset. Kylie and Kendall were in the audience, but they are not injured. Travis won’t be performing tonight. The concert is canceled,’ a source informed People magazine.

At least 23 people were rushed to a hospital – 17 of whom were caught up in the worst of the incident, including a 10-year-old, police said.

Others whose deaths have been confirmed to various news outlets are 16-year-old Brianna Rodriguez and Rodolfo ‘Rudy’ Peña, 23.

Some described not being able to breathe, feeling their ribs crushed and not being able to move their arms as the pushing and shoving went on.

Scott was the subject of a 2019 Netflix documentary titled Travis Scott: Look Mom I Can Fly, which depicts fans with bloody noses at his concerts and shows the difficulty of staging his shows while avoiding police intervention.

Eskins, a concertgoer who describes herself as an ICU nurse, wrote a lengthy Instagram post on Saturday detailing what happened to her at the show.

She says she fainted in the crowd Friday night after she wasn’t able to breathe.

Someone then crowd-surfed her unconscious body to a security guard, who put her in a section backstage where medical staff was frantically trying to save people ‘with eyes rolled back into their heads’ and ‘bleeding from their nose and mouth.’

‘I yelled, “has ANYBODY checked a pulse?’ she recalled.

‘Please come help us,’ a security guard told her after she identified herself as an ICU nurse, she said. 

Scott continued to perform for 37 minutes after first responders were called to the event, according to the Houston Chronicle. Social media video from the concert shows fans asking camera operators to stop the show.

Tickets to the two-day Astroworld festival sold out in under an hour in May, when Scott announced in a since-deleted tweet: ‘We still sneaking the wild ones in.’

Eskins recalls seeing three bodies sprawled out behind the general admission crowd as medical staff performs CPR with little resources or training.

‘I ask where the ambu bag is, where the AED is, where the stretcher and ambulance is, where tf any s*** is and they said essentially there is none,’ Eskins writes.

‘There’s one ambu bag, one stretcher and one AED for 3 – now 4 – people who are pulseless and blue. 

‘People from the crowd are trying to help. Teenagers are doing CPR trying to help but they’re doing it incorrectly. Then I see there’s other people doing CPR on people who still have a pulse bc nobody has done a pulse check. It was an absolute s**t show.’

Over the weekend, videos from Friday’s deadly concert have circulated on social media, with one depicting Scott humming into the microphone as security carries out an unconscious young man, though he appears to have asked security to help the crowd moments before.

Eskins also posted a story calling pushing back on claims, published by TMZ, that a man with a needle was going around and injecting people with something.  

‘This is a lie,’ she wrote. ‘They trying to cover their asses. Nobody who actually was there has said this s****. Nobody saw this s***.’

Houston police chief Troy Finner said a security guard felt a prick in his neck and immediately fell unconscious while he was trying to restrain somebody else, according to TMZ.

The guard was revived using Narcan, used to undo opioid overdoses, and medical staff confirmed that he had been stabbed with a syringe.  

Houston police chief Troy Finner says the investigation into the deaths will leave ‘no stones unturned.’

‘This has not happened to us in Houston since I’ve been a police officer and we take pride in it. And we’re going to get down to the bottom of it,’ Finner said at a press conference Saturday, according to KHOU.

‘A lot of narratives right now. A lot of them on social media and even last night,’ he added. 

‘I think that all of us need to be respectful of the families and make sure we follow the facts and the evidence. And that’s what we’re trying to do here in the Houston Police Department. I will tell you one of the narratives was that someone was injecting other people with drugs.’