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Astroworld investigation: Medical staff at Astroworld responded to 11 cardiac arrests at once, medical company CEO says

Alex Pollak told reporters that his staff were faced with the “impossible feat” of treating 11 people in cardiac arrest at the same time. He said while an active threat such as a mob surge is underway, the protocol prohibits them from going into a situation where they could risk personal harm. Yet his staff continued to retreat into the dangerous crowd to help people.

“This is something that I will have nightmares about for the rest of my life,” Pollak said. “The team is very disappointed by this. Seeing so many young people receiving CPR at the same time, it’s just something that no one has to go through. Even though we are medical professionals, we should used it. You can’t get used to something like that.”

Pollak, who is running the concert, said ParaDocs staff used walkie-talkies provided by event organizers.

The drop in communication was just one of many that happened that Friday night when concertgoers were crushed, trampled, and struggled to breathe as a large crowd poured onto an outdoor stage as rapper and lead vocalist Travis Scott began performing. A total of 10 people died the result of the chaotic concert.

Pollak said Paradocs are unlikely to call for a halt to the concert. He said he believed the concert should have been stopped sooner, but that stopping the concert suddenly at the time could have caused the riot and made the situation worse. He said he could not speculate on what could have been done to contain the situation.

Pollak said the standard rate at these types of events is one ambulance per thousand people. ParaDocs has staff and resources estimated at 70,000, when actual concert attendance is estimated at 50,000.

ParaDocs specializes in providing medical care at major events, Pollak said, adding that his team has extensive experience in logistics and concert production lingo. They are often included so that local first responders can continue to focus on frequent 911 calls in their community. Pollak said ParaDocs does not own any ambulances, but five to seven ambulances have been contracted to serve Astroworld.

‘We were faced with an impossible situation’

Remington Richardson, an emergency medical technician contracted by ParaDocs, recounted the desperate attempt to save lives that night in a series of TikTok posts.

“Being in this crowd is a real threat to life,” Richardson said in videos posted online last week.

Through three different videos, Richardson explains how he and three other paramedics waded shoulder to shoulder through a sea of ​​people to save lives.

After Astroworld, music festivals face new scrutiny over crowd safety

Richardson said in the videos that he would not name the company that contracted him, nor any other doctors.

Richardson discussed how shocked he was when a concertgoer told him that no one had helped a girl who had been lying on the ground for ten minutes. He said she had no pulse and was not breathing when he arrived.

Richardson said he left her with another paramedic to retrieve the impact bag and when he returned he found two other paramedics performing CPR on two more people.

Richardson described how people grabbed him for help as he moved through the crowd, but he “had to tell all of them, ‘I’m going to try and get back to you guys, but people really didn’t. dying right now so i need to go and help. ”

Richardson said his radio calls for backup did not appear to be successful, which he believes was caused by the concert being too loud. “We were faced with an impossible situation,” he said.

Deadly crowd surges have been going on for decades.  Safety standards exist, but they are not required nationally

He detailed the communication issues in a text message to CNN last week.

“For me personally, in a crowd, the music is just too loud to be heard. All I know is that as soon as I saw +5 Houston Fire ambulances rolling onto the site, I was jumping for joy because he got there,” he said.

In TikToks, Richardson defended doctors and EMTs and blamed the crowd of “more than 50,000 highly irresponsible people” for what happened.

“There’s no crowd etiquette,” he said. “They don’t pay attention to anyone around them.”

He called members of the crowd trying to shut down the show “heroes”.

The CEO says the challenge is in and out of the venue

Additional information from police and fire officials at the festival revealed an increasingly dangerous situation before and on Scott’s set. An ambulance took several injured performers to the hospital that morning and afternoon, according to the Houston Fire Department log.
Deadly Astroworld festival lost control for hours, FD Houston logs show

HPD reported “dangerous crowd conditions” an hour before Scott was set to perform. Eight minutes before Scott took the stage at 9 p.m., more than 260 people were treated, according to the diary, which did not specify the type of treatment. And the 9:18 p.m. entry noted a “heart wound”.

Less than half an hour after Scott’s performance, the diary reads: “This is when it all came to fruition.”

“Many people were trampled and lost consciousness in front of the stage” at 9:33 p.m., police said. Minutes later, a police dispatcher reported five 911 calls of “unconscious people in the crowd. Report possible CPR.”

Pollak, CEO of ParaDocs, said his staff – including combat veterans – performed CPR in the back of a stroller, but concert-goers jumped on board, pull them away from you.

Paradocs CEO Alex Pollak appeared on camera for the first time to discuss events at Astroworld.

“They thought it was a joke,” Pollak said, adding that there were no CPR patients waiting for an ambulance to arrive.

“We’ve never run out of equipment and supplies,” Pollak said. “We were able to treat at least twice as many patients. We never expected in our lives to see a situation like this again. .

The challenge, he said, is not resources or staff, but the difficulty of getting in and out of dangerous crowds to reach people in need of medical help.

Pollak described a Unified Command where multiple entities sit at the same desk throughout the day: Houston police, festival security, festival production staff, Paradocs coordinators, and Nuclear emergency coordinators Harris level.

He said it was one of the Paradocs dispatchers at Unified Command who stood up and issued a statement about the “mass casualty incident”.

Judge does not push for independent investigation

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo signal last week she wants to direct a potential third party to conduct an independent investigation of Astroworld.

“What happened at Astroworld this weekend is a horrific tragedy, and the families of the victims deserve answers. Criminal liability is very likely, and that’s why we continue to continue.” continue to fully support the Houston Police Department’s criminal investigation,” Rafael Lemaitre, communications director, told Hidalgo.

“At the same time, Harris County continues the process of identifying a separate, independent third party to review any operational or administrative steps – in addition to any criminal activity – that may be taken to prevent stop this from happening.”

2 high school students, an engineering student and a man trying to save his fiancee are among the victims of the Astroworld Festival
Houston Sheriff Troy Finner defended his department’s ability to investigate the tragedy, saying an independent investigation “is not warranted right now.”

Hidalgo did not receive the necessary assistance from the Harris County Commissioners to conduct an independent investigation, she told reporters Monday.

“I really tried to do my best in public and in private to promote this,” Hidalgo said. “What the trustees support is an independent look at events scheduled for NRG parks to make sure they are following best practices.”

The motion, which was unanimously approved by the Harris County Commissioner’s Court, supported the HPD’s investigation and directed the County Administrator to “meet with the Harris County Athletic Conference Company and the Houston Harris County Athletic Authority to advance conduct an independent assessment of the security, fire, life, and safety plans of all scheduled outdoor concerts on NRG park grounds.”

Can policy prevent another Astroworld tragedy?

The review will also be coordinated with the mayor’s office and “relevant departments,” suggested reading.

“The wording is so vague that there really isn’t much of it,” says Hidalgo.

It is not clear why the county commissioners did not support Hidalgo’s proposal as the discussions took place during the executive session, which is not made public.

Before entering the session, Commissioner Adrian Garcia of Harris County raised questions of liability.

“An item that could open the door to liability that the county isn’t currently subject to, and so if there’s that possibility, I’d like to discuss this in an executive session,” Garcia said.

Ed Lavendera, Travis Caldwell, Paul Vercammen, Ray Sanchez, Victor Blackwell, Jennifer Henderson, Chloe Melas and Gregory Lemos of CNN contributed to this report.

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