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A crowd rush at a music festival in Houston killed eight people and injured scores more on Friday night, in what the city’s mayor called “a tragedy on many levels.”
Sylvester Turner told reporters on Saturday that the dead ranged in age from 14 to 27, with the second young victim being 16 years old. He claimed that 13 of the 25 people sent to the hospital were still under his care, with five of them being under the age of 18.
Turner stated that it was premature to draw any conclusions about what went wrong.
“It may well be that this catastrophe is the product of unanticipated events, of situations coming together that couldn’t possibly have been planned,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo remarked.
The show was canceled, and the festival was canceled as well. Scott said he was “deeply horrified” by what happened last night in a tweet on Saturday, promising to work “along with the Houston community to heal and support the families in need.”
“When we read these ages – 14, 16, 21, 21, 23, 23, 27, it just tears your heart,” Hidalgo told reporters. “I know the images we’ve seen are hard to stomach, and I imagine more will surface.”
Turner stated that family members for six of the deceased had been notified, but that no identifying information will be provided right away. One victim’s family had not been traced, and another had not been identified, according to Hidalgo.
“I’ll tell you,” he said, “one of the tales was that some individual was injecting drugs into other people.”
“We do have a report of a security officer reaching over to restrain a citizen and feeling a prick in his neck, according to the medical team that was out and treated him last night.” He passed out throughout the examination. They gave him Narcan, he was revived, and the medical team noticed a prick that looked like a prick you’d receive if someone was trying to inject you.”
Except for 2020, Scott, a 29-year-old Houston native, created the Astroworld festival in 2018, and it has been held at NRG Park every year since.
Apple Music broadcasted Scott’s performance live on Friday. According to the Houston Chronicle, the rapper came to a halt many times throughout his 75-minute set when he noticed fans in trouble and asked security to assist them. Emergency cars with bright lights and sirens sliced through the gathering.
“I could just not understand the severity of the issue,” Scott said on stage in a 90-second video shared on Twitter on Saturday. The encounter left him “totally distraught,” he said.
Larry Satterwhite, a top Houston police officer, was toward the front. According to him, the surge “happened all at once.”
“All of a sudden, we had multiple people on the ground, enduring so much pain.”
“I spent time in the reunification center talking to families, hearing their anguish, those who didn’t know where their loved ones were,” Hidalgo told reporters on Saturday.
“Sometimes it’s more difficult not to know,” she explained.
It was the most unintentional fatality at a US concert since the Station nightclub fire in Rhode Island in 2003, which killed 100 people.
“Our thoughts are with the Astroworld festival family tonight – especially those we lost and their loved ones,” organizers stated in a statement.
