Austin city leaders to look over safety plans after Astroworld tragedy
HOUSTON, Texas - Tragedy struck in Houston this weekend during Astroworld, a music festival with headliner Travis Scott. Eight people lost their lives and hundreds more were injured.
The youngest victim was 14 years old. The seven others ranged from 16 years-old to their mid 20s. All were at the concert Friday night when the crowd began to storm towards the front of the stage and got caught in a crowd surge.
"Everybody from the back started trying to push to the front," said one concert goer.
"Like wherever your body was that's where you had to stay," said Kaia Redus, who was at the concert.
Jordan Bryan was also at the concert Friday. "It was a struggle to breathe," he said.
He had a spot at the front of the stage, one that thousands were trying to get. "Collectively yelling "push, push" trying to get to the front." he said.
He said as people started to get trampled and things began to escalate, what came next he could never have imagined.
"No one cared about anything," Bryan said. "Like people would pass out and they would be like 'ah just get them out of here.' Like there was no regard for any human life. Their limp bodies were being crowd surfed out of there."
Houston officials say they are actively investigating the incident.
"No parent, no friend, no sibling should see their loved one off to a concert by a world-renowned artist and not be able to expect them to come home," said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo.
Here in Austin, city leaders are evaluating our own safety plans for major events like ACL and SXSW. "We're going to take a look at this immediately," said Austin Mayor Steve Adler.
Adler said when he heard the news about the festival, he immediately wanted to get a start on what can be done to make sure something like that doesn't happen here.
"To see what we can learn, to go to school on that to make sure it doesn't happen here," he said.
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