TK Tellez is aware of that festivals can get loopy. However nothing, he says, may have ready him for the tragedy that unfolded Friday evening on the Astroworld Competition in Houston.
However earlier than Scott even got here out, issues acquired ugly, quick. The gang surged ahead whereas Scott was on stage.
“The gang grew to become tighter and tighter, and at that time it was arduous to breathe. When Travis got here out performing his first music, I witnessed individuals passing out subsequent to me,” Tellez, 20, informed CNN.
“We had been all screaming for assist, and nobody helped or heard us. It was horrifying. Individuals had been screaming for his or her lives, they usually could not get out. No person may transfer a muscle.”
Concertgoers described the occasion as traumatizing, with many witnesses saying they noticed lifeless our bodies being trampled amidst the chaos. Those that survived needed to struggle their manner out of the gang because the music raged on.
Here is extra of what Tellez and others witnessed:
‘It was the scariest sound I’ve ever heard’
Individuals round Tellez started to fall, he mentioned, in some unspecified time in the future inflicting him to fall as effectively. Individuals packed on high of him, some shedding consciousness.
“Everyone was crying; it was the scariest sound I’ve ever heard,” Tellez mentioned. “Think about listening to Travis Scott and folks screaming for his or her lives on the identical time.”
Regardless of his makes an attempt and different bystanders’ efforts to manage CPR to those that weren’t respiratory, “there was simply not sufficient individuals to assist everybody,” he mentioned.
“Travis Scott would have a short while in between songs, and we might scream our vocal chords out so somebody may hear us however no one did,” Tellez mentioned. “This yr’s pageant shall be caught with me without end. I’ve by no means seen somebody die in entrance of my eyes. It was horrific.”
‘I felt prefer it was a nightmare’
Selena Beltran, who was attending her first music pageant, discovered every thing round her start to tighten an increasing number of as Scott made his approach to the stage. She quickly struggled to breathe.
She shortly overlooked her 4 buddies, and because the crowd round her started to leap, she misplaced her steadiness.
“I fell backwards and it felt prefer it was the tip for me. To assume that is how I will die, I used to be so scared,” Beltran informed CNN. “I didn’t know what to do. It was all occurring so quick, however so sluggish and I could not react. I simply screamed.”
Regardless of seeing individuals who had clearly misplaced consciousness, Beltran mentioned, individuals continued trampling those that had been on the bottom.
“I used to be shocked to see individuals act so thoughtless and feral. It was insane to see so many simply run others over like wild animals,” she mentioned. “Individuals didn’t care, they nonetheless tried to squeeze via simply to get to the entrance with out pondering of the implications and who it could have an effect on.”
After somebody pulled her up, Beltran mentioned, she tried to assist 4 different individuals she discovered handed out by taking turns performing CPR on them with a nurse she met within the crowd.
“I used to be starting to enter shock, though I used to be attempting to maintain my composure and never panic. It was terrifying. I felt prefer it was a nightmare,” she mentioned.
“I regarded round and simply noticed individuals stare and others persevering with to take pleasure in themselves as if these individuals meant nothing. It felt like there was little humanity in that crowd.”
Regardless of individuals’s screams to “cease the present,” the music continued, Beltran mentioned. Different witnesses mentioned Scott paused the present a number of instances, and it was ultimately stopped.
By the pageant’s finish, Beltran noticed the our bodies of individuals she carried out CPR on being eliminated by medics, she mentioned.
“I knew they’d handed away,” she mentioned. “I couldn’t sleep final evening. The second saved replaying in my thoughts again and again.”
‘Youngsters had been dropping left and proper’
Billy Nasser described the gang surge that killed eight individuals Friday evening as a “dying entice.”
Nasser mentioned he was one of many concertgoers who tried to assist individuals who had been getting stomped on as they had been “preventing for his or her lives.”
“I picked some child up and his eyes rolled to the again of his head, so I checked his pulse. I knew he was useless,” Nasser mentioned. “I checked the individuals round me. And I simply needed to depart him there, there was nothing I may do. I needed to maintain going.”
“Youngsters had been dropping left and proper,” he mentioned.
Nasser, who works as a DJ, mentioned he simply needed the music to cease as individuals continued to occasion with out “being attentive to the our bodies dropping behind them.”
Regardless of yelling on the digital camera and light-weight technicians and asking them to alert Scott to cease the pageant, Nasser mentioned there wasn’t sufficient employees available to deal with the state of affairs.
“There wasn’t sufficient safety guards and there wasn’t sufficient EMTs and folks serving to out the gang. The paramedics could not even attain the gang,” he mentioned.
‘I felt like I used to be going to die’
Madeline Eskins mentioned she did not consider she would make it out alive when the lethal crowd surge started.
“He began a countdown about half-hour earlier than he carried out — he began a timer on the massive display screen,” Eskins, an ICU nurse, informed CNN about Scott’s efficiency. “And swiftly, individuals compressed up in opposition to one another and had been pushing ahead and backward. Because the timer acquired nearer to coming all the way down to zero, it simply — it acquired worse and worse.”
Eskins described being squeezed from all instructions and felt stress on her chest and again. When she began having hassle respiratory, she requested her boyfriend to inform her son she beloved him earlier than she misplaced consciousness.
“It occurs, individuals rush the stage, no massive deal,” Eskins mentioned. “It is uncomfortable, some get harm, however this was manner overcrowded. I’ve by no means seen something prefer it. I felt like I used to be going to die.”
After being crowdsurfed to security, Eskins used her medical background to assist different concertgoers in misery, however mentioned there weren’t sufficient provides.
“There was so little assets. I imply the medics that had been there to assist, a variety of them hadn’t been correctly skilled,” Eskins mentioned. “That is not to remove from what they had been doing — they had been nonetheless attempting their finest. They weren’t given the right assets.”
The primary issue that contributed to the tragic chaos, Eskins mentioned, was overcrowding.
“I have been to live shows and, sure, it will get tight, however I’ve by no means felt like I used to be going to cross out,” she mentioned. “I by no means noticed individuals collapsing. I undoubtedly by no means noticed anyone die.”
‘By no means seen a present end in something like this’
Joey Guerra, who has coated Houston’s music scene for about 10 years, had arrived on the pageant within the early afternoon and all through the day he noticed a traditional pageant environment.
By the point Scott took the stage later that evening, Guerra was towards the again of the viewers and noticed small emergency autos slicing via the crowds however “for a pageant, it did not appear out of the atypical.”
“You see issues like that quite a bit, individuals being carried out due to exhaustion or dehydration or issues like that,” Guerra informed CNN by telephone Saturday morning. “He did cease the present, I need to say, three or 4 instances when he seen individuals in misery.”
Guerra mentioned Scott performed for about 75 minutes earlier than the set was stopped.
‘My thoughts went into full survival mode’
Jeffrey Schmidt and his finest pal Casey Wagner had been prepared for the very best weekend of their life. As an alternative, they discovered themselves preventing for his or her lives.
Schmidt mentioned he remembers feeling just like the evening was taking a flip for the worst when the 30-minute timer onstage started counting down, and with each minute respiratory grew to become an increasing number of troublesome.
“Me and Casey determined to attempt our greatest to make our manner out of the gang slowly. Little did we all know, all hell was about to interrupt free. Individuals began to cross out and fall to the bottom,” Schmidt informed CNN.
“Casey, I and different crowd members tried to carry again the gang from trampling over them. However the pressure of the gang was too highly effective, and folks began to topple on high of the them together with Casey and I.”
The 2 buddies discovered themselves reaching at one another for assist, however had been shortly separated once they had been trampled beneath piles of our bodies, with Schmidt’s legs caught beneath different fallen concertgoers.
“At that second my thoughts went into full survival mode. All I may hear was individuals screaming and crying for assist,” Schmidt mentioned. “I misplaced all hope and thought I used to be going to die proper there as a result of I couldn’t get my legs out. I fought for my life.
“I assumed I used to be by no means going to see my finest pal once more, life didn’t really feel actual,” he mentioned.
Finally, he made his manner out of the chaos and ran to regulation enforcement officers for assist, however they initially didn’t take him critically, he mentioned. Schmidt and Wagner later reunited, and each had been “terrified and traumatized, he added.
“This was not a live performance, this was a struggle for survival,” Schmidt mentioned.
“I witnessed a number of individuals unconscious and unable to breathe, as individuals beneath me had been crying for my assist. However I bodily couldn’t assist. That’s what traumatized me essentially the most, that I couldn’t assist the individuals round me. I felt heartbroken for them and their households.”
CNN’s Jenn Selva and Fernando Alfonso III contributed to this report.
