Concert-goers Nick Johnson and Angel Rodriguez spoke with CNN about their experience last night at the Astroworld Festival in Houston where at least eight people died, and scores of others were injured when the crowd surged toward the stage during a performance by Houston rapper Travis Scott.
Johnson and Rodriguez said Scott stopped the show on at least three occasions to ask for help for stricken concertgoers, and that they attended the festival with six other friends, who were all able to make it out safely.
Johnson said the crowded atmosphere built up over a long period of time Friday night.
“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.”
“Everyone just started pushing to the front,” Rodriguez said about his vantage point, approximately 50 feet from the stage at the time. “It was so hard to breathe up there, you just have to wait until it pushes back, because if it [the crowd] gets pushed forward, it’s likely going to get pushed back,” he continued.
“When you get pushed back, people always fall over,” Rodriguez said.
“It was so hard to move your arms and it was so hard to breathe, that I was there, like pushing whoever was in front of me just like to, get a breather, just to breathe,” he said.
Source: www.cnn.com