‘Traumatised and terrified’: Survivors of the deadly Astroworld crowd surge tell of ‘fight for their lives’

They came from all over Houston and beyond, arriving up to 12 hours early to secure a place close to the stage and experience up-close one of the rage-fuelled performances Travis Scott is renowned for.

Children as young as 10, high school friends, and young professionals out celebrating the return of stadium festivals crowded into Houston’s NRG Park early Friday.

Read the latest updates here

Estimates put the crowd size at 50,000, but video footage showed hundreds leaping the turnstiles, as security appeared almost non-existent.

But something was amiss. Houston Police Department chief Troy Finner said he felt trouble brewing in the lead up to Friday’s performance and tried to warn Scott and his head of security of his concerns in a private meeting on Friday afternoon.

The global pandemic and “social tension” had combined to create a combustible atmosphere at the Houston stadium, Mr Finner told organisers, and he asked them not to further inflame tensions.

At 8.30pm, a 30-minute clock began counting down to 9pm when the hometown rapper was due to take the stage.

Anticipation quickly turned to fear as people began to push their way to the front.

By the time Scott came on, there was a frenzied surge to the front.

Wave after wave of bodies threw themselves forward, trampling anyone who was unable to support their bodyweight. Bodies were crushed underfoot in the seething mass of humanity, while others gasped for air, while trying to stay upright.

One survivor said he felt like he was “drowning”.

Strangers came to the aid of those who had passed out due to a lack of oxygen.

Some pleaded for the concert to be called off, but say their requests were ignored by festival staff.

‘I just need to breathe’

Diana Amira, 19, got to the stadium early and waited for nearly 12 hours to get a place near the front.

She told NBC News about 90 minutes before Mr Scott came on stage the crowd stood up, and she realised people were so tightly packed in that she was having trouble breathing.

Ms Amira recalls the surge in energy as Scott took to the stage, and trying to steel herself.

“I told myself this is the moment I’ve been preparing for, I just need to breathe,” Ms Amira said.

“But ... my rib cage was so squished that I couldn’t expand my lungs to catch a breath.”

Almost as soon as Scott took the stage, she passed out. She says she only survived because people around her were helping her remain on her feet.

TK Tellez, 20, told CNN that when Scott came out to perform his first song, he saw people passing out around him.

“We were all screaming for help, and no one helped or heard us. It was horrifying. People were screaming for their lives, and they couldn’t get out. Nobody could move a muscle.”

The crowd began chanting “Stop the Show” but on it went.

Scott has reportedly said he was unable to hear or see the tragedy unfolding due to the pyrotechnics, strobe lights and noise.

During a livestream of the performance, he could be seen stopping several times, calling on someone to help people who had passed out in the crowd.

Officials declared a mass casualty event at 9.38pm, but the rapper continued to perform until around 10.15pm.

“Travis Scott would have a short time in between songs, and we would scream our vocal chords out so someone could hear us but nobody did,” Mr Tellez told CNN.

“This year’s festival will be stuck with me forever. I’ve never seen someone die in front of my eyes. It was horrific.”

‘There was nothing I could do’

Billy Nasser told CNN that he also tried to help people who were “fighting for their lives.”

“I picked some kid up and his eyes rolled to the back of his head, so I checked his pulse. I knew he was dead,” Mr Nasser said.

“I checked the people around me. And I just had to leave him there, there was nothing I could do. I had to keep going.”

Cody Hartt wrote on Twitter how he pleaded with festival staff for the show to be called off.

“I screamed for help so many times, alerted security, asked everyone in the crowd if there was anyone who was CPR certified. Every call went unanswered,” Mr Hartt wrote.

“I was told, ‘we already know, and we can’t do anything to stop the show, they’re streaming live’. Disgusting.”

Among the harrowing stories to emerge from the Astroworld Festival was one from 23-year-old Houston-based ICU nurse Madeline Eskins.

“Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. I work at the ICU, I see people die every week. But it was absolutely insane,” Ms Eskins told The Daily Beast.

“I was about to tell my boyfriend to tell my son that I loved him, because I really thought that I was not gonna see him again. And before I could say anything, I fainted.”

When she regained consciousness, Ms Eskins said she started trying to help other injured people, and saw a man lying on the ground.

“I noticed that one guy they were carrying looked real bad,” she said. “And I stopped him and I said, ‘Hey,  have you checked the pulse?’ And the security guard was like, ‘I don’t know how.’ And I said, ‘I’m an ICU nurse. Let me help.’”

Ms Eskins said when she checked for a pulse the man wasn’t breathing, and she told the security guard to get him straight to a medical tent.

She stayed at the field hospital triaging patients until the last of them had been loaded into ambulances.

‘I couldn’t breathe’

“I’ve never been that scared for my life,” another survivor, 19-year-old Kaia Redus, said of her Astroworld experience.

She and her friend and Zachary Scott who were taking selfies when the mood suddenly turned dark as a 30-minute began counting down the time until  Mr Scott took the stage.

“As soon as that timer hit zero everybody from the back started trying to push to the front. I couldn’t breathe,” Zachary Scott said.

The friends were among the dozens who sought medical attention after being left bruised and beaten by the experience.

“You saw people like laying over the person they were with, with their mouth open. You saw people covered in vomit,” Ms Redus added.

The pair said they barely made it out alive and blamed festival organisers for putting on a “concert from hell”.

Jeffrey Schmidt attended the NRG Park show with his best friend Casey Wagner, and recalled how it became more and more difficult to breathe as the 30-minute timer onstage began counting down.

“Me and Casey decided to try our best to make our way out of the crowd slowly. Little did we know, all hell was about to break loose. People started to pass out and fall to the ground,” Mr Schmidt told CNN.

“Casey, I and other crowd members tried to hold back the crowd from trampling over them. But the force of the crowd was too powerful, and people started to topple on top of them including Casey and I,” he added.

The friends became separated as they got stuck under piles of bodies, and say they reached out to try to help each other.

Mr Schmidt said he went into “full survival mode”.

“All I could hear was people screaming and crying for help,” he said. “I lost all hope and thought I was going to die right there because I could not get my legs out. I fought for my life.”

Eventually the pair made it out of the deadly crush “terrified and traumatised”.

“I thought I was never going to see my best friend again, life did not feel real,” he told CNN.

Ryan MacLeod, an attorney for another concertgoer, said his client felt like he was “drowning”.

The client, an unnamed 35-year-old man, is among the dozen injured attendees to have filed lawsuits against Mr Scott and concert organisers Live Nation.

“There’s the physical pain but even kind of greater... is the emotional trauma from this, the emotional scarring, that sort of silent pain,” Mr McLeod told KHOU-TV.

“He felt like he was drowning, he felt like he couldn’t breathe. Then, he was trampled and there was a hero, as many of these concertgoers turned out to be, who was able to lift him and get him out to safety.”

In the aftermath of the “mass casualty” event, 17 people were transported to hospital, 11 after suffering cardiac arrest.

Hundreds of others were treated at a field hospital that was set up at NRG Park.

More than a dozen survivors had filed lawsuits by Monday alleging the organisers failed to provide enough emergency personnel and refused to call off the show once it became clear a mass casualty event was unfolding.

The eight victims have been identified by family members as John Hilgert, 14; Brianna Rodriguez, 16; Franco Patino, 21; Jake Jurinek, 20; Axel Acosta, 21; Danish Baig, 27; Rudy Peña, 23; and Madison Dubiski, 23.

Five of the victims are from Texas, two traveled to Houston from Illinois, and another came from Washington.

Scott has offered his condolences to the victims, and on Monday announced he would cover all of the funeral costs.

“Travis remains in active conversations with the city of Houston, law enforcement and local first responders to respectfully and appropriately connect with the individuals and families of those involved,” he said in a statement.

“These are the first of many steps Travis plans on taking as a part of his personal vow to assist those affected throughout their grieving and recovery process,” the statement said.

Astroworld organisers have offered refunds to all of the attendees.

A well as the civil lawsuits, two separate criminal investigations are looking into the mass casualty event.