Attendees felt like they were drowning
The Houston Police Department tweeted on Sunday that the investigation into the tragedy is active and “is in its early stages.”
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner told CNN his office is working to determine what happened at the Astroland Festival, how it happened and to make sure it does not happen again.
“We are praying for their family members, there are still two individuals who are critical — in critical condition in our hospitals — so, we are praying for all of them,” Turner said.
Turner said the identity of the eighth victim in Friday’s tragedy, who was previously unidentified, has been confirmed by the victim’s family.
The Friday night crowd at the sold-out Astroworld Festival, headlined and organized by rapper Travis Scott, was so tightly packed that when audience members were pushed toward the stage, some told CNN that they were crushed to the point where they couldn’t breathe and passed out.
One security officer was struck in the neck during the concert while trying to restrain an audience member.
“When he was examined, he went unconscious. They administered Narcan,” Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said Saturday of the security officer. “He was revived, and the medical staff did notice a prick similar to what you would get if somebody was trying to inject. That is one part of it.”
There were several other incidents Friday where the drug was administered, Houston Fire Chief Sam Peña said.
Narcan is a drug used to treat narcotic overdoses.
Other attempts to save lives included some people administering CPR. Former Marine Lucas Naccarati said he performed CPR on two people who passed out.
“That was a different world. I immediately thought, ‘This is not OK. Someone is going to die here,” he told CNN. “I’ve never seen a mass amount of bodies dropping that fast before.”
The victims who died include a 14-year-old
“The crowd for whatever reason began to push and surge towards the front of the stage, which caused the people in the front to be compressed — they were unable to escape that situation,” Peña told CNN.
The chaos sent at least 25 people to the hospital, and 13 of them remained there Saturday afternoon, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said. Five of them are under the age of 18, he said.
The ages of the victims who died ranged from 14 to 27, and the age of one person who was killed remains unknown, Turner said.
The causes of their deaths are pending the medical examiner’s determination, Peña said.
Officials said they will review video from the scene and assess how the venue was laid out as part of the investigation into the tragedy.
The investigation will cover “what caused, one, the issue of the crowd surge, and two, what prevented people from being able to escape that situation,” Peña said Saturday.
“We are certainly looking at all of the video footage, we are talking to witnesses, we are talking to event organizers,” Turner told CNN on Saturday.
Rapper Roddy Ricch, one of the festival’s performers, announced he will donate his share of concert proceeds to victims’ families
“Please have the families of those we lost yesterday reach out to @shawnholiday. I’ll be donating my net compensation to the families of this incident,” Ricch posted on Instagram.
He closed his post with the hashtag “Pray4Houston.”
‘Like we were drowning in a pool filled of just people’
Sarai Sierra, who went to the festival to celebrate her birthday, said she saw multiple people who could not breathe after Scott appeared on stage.
“I truly thought that if I fell it would’ve been the end of me. I spent at least 15 minutes just getting pushed around due to mosh pits or simply because people were ‘raging,'” Sierra said.
Sierra, who attended the festival with friends and family, added that she saw about 20 people who could not breathe, including one person who suffered a seizure before her eyes.
“It felt like we were drowning in a pool filled of just people,” she said.
Nick Johnson and Angel Rodriguez, who also went to the festival, said a crowded atmosphere built up over an extended period of time.
“It was going on for over two hours,” Johnson said. “It just got worse and worse, everyone’s like, you just can’t breathe, you just feel like there’s a weighted blanket on you.”
And once people were pushed toward the stage, breathing got more challenging, Rodriguez explained.
“When you get pushed back, people always fall over,” Rodriguez said.
Officials ramped up security after the 2019 trampling incident, gearing 528 Houston police officers at the concert and an additional 755 private security personnel, the police chief said.
On Saturday, Scott posted an Instagram story mourning the lives lost.
“I’m honestly just devastated,” Scott said as he repeatedly sighed and rubbed his forehead. “We’re actually working right now to identify the families so we can help assist them through this tough time.”
“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,” Jenner said in an Instagram post.
“Travis and I are broken and devastated. My thoughts and prayers are with all those who lost their lives, were injured or affected in anyway by yesterday’s events. And also for Travis who I know cares deeply for his fans and the Houston community.”
CNN’s Joe Sutton, Keith Allen, Holly Yan, Gregory Lemos, Amanda Jackson, Melissa Alonso, Maya Brown, Jenn Selva, Andy Rose, Artemis Moshtaghian, Jason Hanna and Claudia Dominguez contributed to this report.
